Nurturing Side

Claire still loves Reese's trains and dinosaurs, but she is also discovering her girly nurturing side lately.

She has been trying to change her Raggedy Ann's clothes and diaper. Unfortunatley, Ann's clothes are sewn on, so it is impossible in actuality to change her diaper. But she seems happy enough pretending to change it, mumbling, "change diaper..." or "clean up..." as she fiddles with the doll.

Sometimes she tries to dress her little plastic dolphin bath toys up in her own cloths, saying things like "How cuuuute!" or "He's snuggly!" Of course, these dolphins are about 3 inches tall, so even a toddler's little shirt dwarfs them. Speaking of her dolphins, she has named them too. The orange one, the first one of the bunch that we got out her, is named Thomas, after Thomas the Train. The other two are named Henry and James, who are also train names. She is very consistent about the naming. Thomas is always the bright orange one, James is the dull orange one, and Henry is the green one. She has even started to wash her dolphins during her own bath. I give her a washcloth, and she gently scrubs the dolphins with it one at a time, saying, "Let's clean him up."

Claire also loves to feed dog treats to Muffin. They both get a real tickle out of it. Claire holds the treat out for Muffin and waits for her to grab it with her mouth. She still seems a little scared that Muffin will bite her hand, so she usually lets the treat go when Muffin opens her mouth, dropping it on the floor. But especially when she makes a successful delivery, she giggles and jumps around. Both she and Muffin could do this all day.

Actually, Claire's nurturing side has take a slightly odd turn as well. She has a Thomas the Train board book with a raised plastic face on the front. If you press it's nose, the book plays a little song. Claire has recently adopted this book as her little baby to take care of. She likes to dress it -- the book -- in clothes, pretend to feed it with a bottle, and will sometimes put it to sleep. This is sort of bizarre to watch, but I guess it makes sense since the book sort of resembles a doll, with its little plastic face. In fact, it is the closest thing that Claire has to a doll besides her stuffed animals. I thought dolls only made sense for four or five year old girls, but I guess not. Perhaps it is time to gt Claire a doll.