Good "Mommy"

In one of the emails I get about Anne's age, development and play ideas, there was an idea to get a baby doll that can go in the tub so that your toddler can play with it in a little basin filled with water outside of the tub. Sort of water play. Since I am always working on how to play more with Anne and engage her, I thought this seemed like a great idea. I went out searching for an all plastic baby that Anne could bathe in a "tub". I found one at Target for 10 bucks. It was pretty cheap looking but exactly what I wanted, plus it was advertised as a tub baby doll, and came complete with a baby tub, towel, bath robe, soaps, toys, ducky and bottle.

When I brought it home, Anne LOVED it! She played with her for an entire hour straight!!! Initially she was very interested in feeding her a bottle and looking at all the accessories. Any attempt on my part to get her interested in bathing her was met with a loud "No!!" that boarded on her losing it. After about 10 minutes of playing with her outside the tub, she then calmly stood up and said "Wa wa" and walked over to the tub and proceeded to play with her for the next hour in the doll's tub! It was so great! I loved getting to see her play with a toy like that. She was especially good at wiping her with a little wash cloth. One thing that was particularly cute was that she kept running into her room to get the baby a diaper. Since Anne's diapers were way too huge, my cloth diapering skills came into good practice and I was able to fashion a diaper out of a baby spit rag. Here are some pictures of Anne's fun afternoon.