We decided to change it up a little bit again this week. I saw that Addison had such a great time with her new crayons last week, that I wanted to make sure I was doing things in other areas that expands her bubble there, too.
So, enter an idea-stealer from Brittany.
A couple of weeks ago, Brittany ordered a beautiful little baby doll for Landry to play with. This baby doll has dark skin. When the baby doll showed up, Landry didn’t so much as bat an eye. She grabbed “Gabby” and started playing with her immediately, loving on her and showing her around.
I loved this idea so much and I loved the lack of a reaction to there being anything different about Gabby.
So, I decided to follow suit and ordered Addison a similar baby doll. We named ours Abby, thanks to the suggestion of our cousin Jaden. Because obviously Abby and Gabby are best friends since Addison and Landry are best friends. If only we had thought this through when we were picking Addi’s name out, we could have done something that rhymed with Landry to really seal the deal.
I wasn’t sure how Addison would react to a baby doll in general. She’s not around other kids, especially now, and we don’t really have any baby doll-esque toys in the house for her to play with. And if I’m being honest, one of the things that had me worried about being a girl mom when I found out I was indeed going to be a girl mom, was all the dolls; all the girly things. I really didn’t want to have to play with dolls and barbies. BUT HERE WE ARE. What I thought and what I’m actually doing are two entirely different things, again.
Abby showed up right before Addison was supposed to go to bed, so we decided to hold onto her until the morning. I didn’t want her to get so excited that she would skip out on sleeping, because, ya know, baby sleep. I’ve said it before. It’s too dang important.
So, as soon as she woke up, got teeth brushed and was beginning to start her day, I pulled the box down from the counter to show her. We unwrapped Abby together. I could see her excitement building. She immediately took her and held her close to her body. And then inspected every bit of her, pointing out her hands, feet, eyes, mouth, nose, etc. She LOVES her. And I melted watching her love on her. She has some very gentle, matronly qualities that I hadn’t seen come out before and it made my heart radiate in places I didn’t know existed.
I made a point of asking her if she noticed how her skin was darker than ours? I know that being colorblind is not teaching our kids to see the differences but not treat them as definitions of who a person is. I didn’t want to let this go by without at least addressing it. We talked about how Abby’s skin is dark and matches one of our new crayons, and how it is different than ours but it’s still beautiful. Because different can always be beautiful, too.
I have said this before and will probably continue to say it for a long time: I have no idea what she picks up on. I have no idea what she understands or what will stick. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing or if the things I’m doing are the right things to do. But we have to try, we have to start somewhere. And starting somewhere, this week, meant buying my daughter a baby doll that looked different than her and the people she might be used to seeing.