From now on I’m only buying potty trained dolls.
You see, for some reason, Clara has decided that her dolls keep pooping. They poop a lot. So I spend all day changing the diapers of her ‘doll babies’, stuffed dogs, teddy bears, etc. in addition to her (actually dirty) diapers.
Is she trying to get me ready for having two kids?! It may be working.
The obvious solution is to tell her that the dolls didn’t actually poop and therefore don’t need to be changed. Trust me, we’ve tried this.
All of her dolls are currently in cloth diapers, so when Clara tells us they went to the bathroom, we check them to ensure they didn’t poop and then tell Clara there is no need to change them. Oh the tantrums that have occurred because we didn’t
(She is going to be quite the concerned bossy big sister in a few weeks, let me tell you. I’m about to have my hands very, very full.)
That was all bad enough, but then just the other day she decided that the doll babies not only need fresh diapers every hour or so, they also need to be fully changed. So, she now takes off her dolls’ outfits and diapers, gets out the wipes, cleans them off, and then hands them to us to put a NEW diaper back on (it can’t be the same one they were wearing, obviously).
This cannot continue. Baby wipes aren’t cheap and we’re constantly in search of cloth diapers when we need them for Clara!
My new strategy is to tell her that her doll babies are potty-trained. Now when she tells me that her baby needs to be changed, I tell her that baby dolls only poop in the potty, like big girls do. This has proven somewhat effective, because now she’ll occassionally throw her baby dolls in her toddler potty. Thank goodness she doesn’t throw them in the real toilet, but I’m waiting for that to happen next.
Plus, the toddler potty isn’t the most sanitary place for baby dolls, I’m sure – but that’s neither here nor there.
The point is, next time around I’m buying only potty trained dolls, and from the beginning I’m going to tell my child that the dolls don’t need diapers because they’re “big kids who use the potty! Yay!”
I’ll let you know if this works for us.
Even though this toddler phase is exhausting, it is pure entertainment at the same time.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to track down our cloth diaper stash (while Clara’s asleep) and stuff the baby wipes (currently strewn all over our floor) back into the wipes dispenser.
Toddler moms, I salute you.
