These two little darlings are the best of friends.  I’ve never known a baby of her age to be so attached to a doll.   She gets so excited when she spots her little dolly, I sometimes worry she might hyperventilate!  And if you do not realize right away what it is she’s wanting or if for some reason she must be separated from her beloved, say while putting arms into shirt sleeves, the crying is most pitiful.  I’ve taken to hiding her at meal times.  Waldorf dolls and yam covered hands do not mix!  When they are reunited she says, “ahh-ah beh-beh! (baby)” and kisses and cuddles her up.  Every once in a while she will thrust baby into someone else’s arms while making kissing sounds on the understanding that the recipient is to kiss and cuddle baby before promptly returning her to her wee mistress.  If she wakes from a nap and baby is not there, she cries.  It baby is there, she sits, with baby in her lap, babbling her little secrets and patiently waiting for someone to come and fetch them both.

Baby has a little bonnet and dress set, but as you can see, they are often discarded.  Seraphina likes to take them off, but try as she might, she has yet to manage getting them back on, at least in any manner which they are likely to stay on.

Juliette, as most of us call her, we have something of a tradition of middle names being taken as dolly names, was a first Christmas gift and her making has a funny story behind it.  I thought I would do something terribly clever and fancy.  I got to looking at all of these techniques that I had never tried before.  I started experimenting with different methods of sculpting the face.  The first head I did was horrifying!  I’m laughing now as I picture it.  I would share a photo, but I’m afraid of frightening you.  I wanted a very sweet, baby-ish little doll and what I created looked like an ugly and disgruntled old man.  Ah, but I forged ahead, telling myself that once I added pretty blue eyes, rosy cheeks and rose petal pink lips it would be totally transformed and all would be well.  And what a transformation it was!  Into what looked like an ugly and disgruntled old man in drag!  After which I started over, sticking to the basics.  Whenever will I learn that simple is better?