Dolly’s Daddy

Every day, Lucia’s doll—Dolly—becomes more and more of an actual presence in our household. Lucia is with her doll constantly. She calls it “my baby.” She refers to herself in the third-person as “Mommy,” as in, “Dolly is crying for Mommy.” Dolly takes naps; Dolly gets hungry; when Dolly is fussy, she is given a bottle or taken for a walk in her stroller. And now, Dolly has her very own daddy.

The concept of who, exactly, Dolly’s daddy is has clearly—and hilariously—confounded Lucia. For a couple of days, she tentatively placed Andrew in that role; when he got home from work, Lucia-as-Dolly would exclaim, “Daddy’s home!” But she clearly knew this wasn’t exactly right—after all, Andrew is her own daddy, and it didn’t quite make sense that he was Dolly’s daddy too. You could see the pieces just not lining up in her little mind.

Then, two days ago, Dolly suddenly had her very own daddy. A little while after Andrew left for work, Lucia announced that daddy was home—Dolly’s daddy. And, in fact, Dolly’s daddy had never left, and would never leave, for work, because he works from home every day and is always in our library (which Andrew uses as his office). “Dolly’s daddy stays!” she announced. “He’s home! He’s always here!” We agreed that Dolly was very lucky.

This has gone on and on. When Andrew left this morning, Lucia said to him reproachfully, “Dolly’s daddy stays home.” It’s both cute and sad, because Lucia so desperately loves it when Andrew is home. Dolly is lucky, indeed.