Overheard

I had been complaining about the selection of dolls in Beijing. It seems really difficult to buy a doll that is NOT blond and blue eyed and some variant of Barbie, or some random Disney princess. I had been looking for a doll with Eurasian features without much success, and at this point was happy to settle on just an "Asian" doll without it being sterotyped in cheong sam or kimino.

Sophie finally has 2 dolls. One from her French grandparents with dark hair and eyes which she baptized as "Baby" (what else?) and a Haba one from my German friend Miriam whom she calls "Lukas". It's wonderful that Lukas has light brown hair and light brown eyes.

We have pretty amusing conversations regarding Baby and Lukas. Since she started school, Sophie started speaking increasing amounts of English voluntarily, although Chinese is still her language of choice. Her English contains some grammar errors still, but we're working on getting out of 2nd language level.

"wah wah wah"
"Sophie, why is Baby crying?"
"Baby hungry"
"here, why don't you give Baby some food?" (I hand her the fake milk bottle)
"Okay..."
(several minutes later)
"Wah Wah Wah"
"what's wrong Sophie? Didn't you feed Baby?"
"Just Joking Mama ... Baby no drink milk"

(** for a split second I wonder whether she is going to tell me she is worried about melamine !)

"Why doesn't Baby drink milk, Sophie?"

"No milk from bottle. "

And my 2 year proceeds to lift her t-shirt up and put the doll to her breast!!

Yep - apparently, Baby is exclusively breast-fed too. Just like Baby Alex....