the poopin' doll

Do you remember Baby Alive? When I was a kid I was jealous because Ange had a Baby Alive. Baby Alive was cool – she came with plastic diapers that turned either brown or yellow inside when you fed her a bottle of water. I don't know what it is with girls and their diaper dirtying dolls, but pooping babies and their imitators seem to be a timeless favorite of little girls wanting to do what Mommy does.

Jordan got a Baby Alive for Christmas. Over the last 20 years, Baby Alive has morphed into Cyborg Baby Alive. She blinks, laughs, tells you she loves you, sings songs, sniffs the air and informs you that she made a stinky. The entire time her rubberized face contorts to add depth to her emotions. The thing that has remained the same about Baby Alive is that she pees and poops. Except, unlike Baby Alive of the past, she actually passes the food through her to end up, poop-like, in her diaper. Jordan calls Baby Alive her poopin' doll.

Today I finally made time to let Jordan feed and change her baby. I figured that this play would need to be supervised play because I was sure it was going to be messy. I made sure her diaper was on tight, plopped her in her dolly high chair, whipped up the special food in the special bowl with the special spoon, and let Jordan at it. It was a little messy, but not too bad. She managed to get most of the package of food into the doll, followed by water out of the doll bottle. We wiped Baby off, threw the dishes in the sink and I told Jordan that it was now time for her to change her baby's diaper. We laid Baby on the floor in anticipation of the big, sloppy poop that was sure to be there. We peeled off the soggy diaper, only to find . . . drum roll please . . . nothing.

Jordan was disappointed. She was hoping to find poop, and lots of it. I thought that maybe she hadn't managed to get much of the food actually into the doll after all. I mixed up a second batch of the food and fed it to the doll myself, much to Jordan's delight. With a skill honed from years of feeding living, breathing children, I got every last drop into that doll, scraping her lips and shoveling in any that may have dripped. I sent some water down after it to try and help it through. Again, we laid the doll on the floor and peeled off the now very wet diaper. Again . . . nothing.

What the heck? The little pig had just gobbled up two packets of doll food, giggling and burping along the way. My daughter wanted poop, where was the poop??

I was on a mission for little girls everywhere. I carried the doll to the sink and put more water in her mouth. I could tell Jordan was on the verge of finding something else to do so time was of the essence. I noticed that Baby was no longer peeing. I put water in her mouth and it just sat there. Dolly, it seemed, was constipated. I shook her – nothing. I tried to squirt the water into her mouth with extra zeal, still, no rewarding poopy mess.

Drastic measures needed to be taken. I held Baby, still over the sink, and put my lips over hers, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation style. With all I could muster, I blew into Baby's mouth. Finally, bowel relief. Jordan laughed in uninhibited delight as the yellow-green poop sprayed all over the inside of the sink and the dirty dishes inside. I squirted more water in her mouth and blew into her again. More poop. Jordan couldn't have been more thrilled. She laughed as that poop came squirting from the Baby's (dare I say it) pooper.

Baby sang songs as I used a Q-Tip to clean out the back end of the poopy path. It seems a good time was had by all.