cole and the babies

yes, another post involving the somewhat-creepy vintage doll dubbed the "new year's baby". actually, i'm not sure that we've had that many posts that reference this doll, but it comes up in conversation oddly often in our family.

for those who don't know: jamie and i liberated it four years ago now on christmas eve eve from a musty corner at the cloverdale "antique" mall - source of good finds and a lot of junk. it was one of our two contributions to the annual family post-christmas-dinner gag gift exchange. won by aunt christine, who was totally creeped out by it and vowed that it would not be allowed in the house. surprisingly, it showed up again the following christmas, only to end up with yours truly. i was very excited to see it back. turns out uncle ian had kept it hidden in a spider-infested shed and saved it for the exchange. i have been wanting to put it back in for the last few years, but it's proved too good a model for various things (stock photography, for one) and instead we've put in substitutes two years running - one year a framed photo of the baby, hilariously which ended up with uncle ian who, when unwrapping his gift, prematurely declared "at least it's not the creepy doll". and last christmas we had a deck of cards custom-printed with the baby photo on the back, encased in a box containing four pounds of peanuts in the shell, which made little sense but had us laughing until we cried while we wrapped it up. fifty-two new years baby photos - plus jokers! check out the baby's annual family christmas appearance in this flickr set...

anyway, the baby still lives here at our place. cole used to be alternately mildy curious, spooked by it and then intrigued. now he calls it 'baby' and laughs at it and likes to dress it up with various hats. and to possibly make it less creepy (but not really) we've dressed him in one of cole's old newborn t-shirt with monkeys on the front. a while ago i was getting rid of some things on craigslist and a woman came by to pick them up. she was browsing through our old baby clothes and found the pants that matched the shirt and asked where the top was. i think she was creeped out when i pointed to the doll... right now it's sitting on cole's radio flyer scooter over in the corner. yesterday it was lying, spread eagled with no pants on, in the hallway when jamie walked in and declared that it was too gross a sight to see on first getting home.

we added another doll baby to the house a little while ago, when i thought ny baby might be too creepy for cole. we got an inexpensive doll from toys 'r us that had a hard head and appendages but a soft, squishy body and a rather vacant expression, which we've dubbed 'scuttles' since that's kind of what he does when you make him pretend chase cole. cole calls scuttles 'baby' too and likes especially to drag him through the big blue tunnel that always seems to come out when it's time to fold laundry, for some reason.

anyway, that whole long, rambling story was just to justify the photos of cole being adorable with his dolls.