Baby Brenda

We have a new “member” of the family. Baby Brenda has actually been here for a while, but up until now she’s been living in a dark dank box in the basement, surrounded by my other childhood toys. This weekend she got a serious upgrade and is now sleeping soundly, dressed in a new sleeper, swaddled in a receiving blanket, baby powdered and lying in the antique cradle in our bedroom wrapped in a furry blanket!!

You see, we’ve been doing some reading on how to get our furry friend ready to deal with the fact that in a few months he will no longer be the centre of the universe, which up until now, he has been. Along with getting him used to spending time by himself, no more jumping up to greet people, no more sleeping on the bed and many other suggestions, one of the tips was to get a wee doll, and start treating it like a real member of the family – walk around with it in your arms, change it while making the dog sit and stay in a pre-designated position, make it smell like a baby by adding baby powder and “scented” blankets (from other real live babies perhaps) and so on. So Gretel is busy scenting receiving blankets with the smell of Phelan for us (which basically boils down to passing along her dirty laundry…but hey, I asked for it!) We have started to walk around with Baby Brenda and talk to her, putting her down for naps and keeping Dudley out of the bedroom and so on. It feels a wee bit silly, but since Baby Brenda has been sleeping since yesterday afternoon without a peep, I’m not going to complain! Yesterday afternoon when I called home, Steve picked up the phone quite quickly and said “I just put Brenda down and didn’t want the phone to wake her,” I almost jumped through the phone and kissed him!!