This Baby

You have heard about Baby Girl and Baby Boy, long-time favorite dolls of Lady Baby. But a third baby doll, one less often the chosen, has always been part of the scene.

The staff at Downtown sometimes called her by the surname of the family whose gift she was, but when Lady Baby wanted a doll to go in the stroller or sit with us to read, we’d pick up a doll and ask: “Do you want Girl Baby? Boy Baby? – Oh – you want this baby?”

She is now formally known as This Baby (I’m told). Further I can tell you (thanks to Mrs. Hughes) that she is two-years old, likes purple, and shoes – proclivities she shares with Lady Baby.

She probably doesn’t speak as well though. Because I also heard that one morning, after watching a garbage truck, Lady Baby retreated to the hall closet where several small trucks are garaged. After nattering and making siren sounds with them for a while, she finally said to Mrs. Hughes: “My guys drive dump trucks and cement trucks and pick-up trucks.”

“They do?”

“Sometimes.”

Much as I love these stories, I am more sorry than you know to be telling them secondhand!