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at the end of September 2008 -when I had had Nate for five months -I was looking at the reborn listings on my site as I often
do, and happened across a baby girl who looked almost EXACTLY like me when I was a baby. Some visitors may remember seeing her at the
top left hand corner of each page for awhile, that baby with the big eyes and the button nose ...a Regina Swialkowsky
"Angelina" sculpt. Maybe my nose was not quite so rosy but otherwise that could have been a replica of my baby picture. Here was the photo:
She did not have any bids (guess I was not
THAT cute a baby !) but I just kept returning to her photo. I showed my husband, and teased him that I would buy her for him as a Christmas present because she looked
as though she could be our baby (we have similar coloring). And he
said, "You can buy her for YOURSELF if you want, but not for me !!!" I was
amazed, because I remembered after I bought Nate he had said to me, "Don't buy any more of those things."
I thought about it: I had heard from several women who wrote to the site to tell me how beneficial they found reborn
baby dolls in doing inner child work to recover from the child abuse they had survived. Being a survivor myself, I felt
eager to try that, especially now that my husband seemed to have changed his mind. And I really could not stand the
thought of anyone else getting her instead, if I had the means to do so. I guess that's a useful criterion for deciding
whether to buy a reborn doll or not ! I should add that the artistry is impeccable
on this baby doll; as just one example, the little knuckles are blushed in a perfectly realistic way. In fact, the hands
resemble mine so much it is uncanny. I got the impression that the artist might
not be too comfortable with speaking in English because her communications were very brief, unlike most reborn artists who
bask in the admiration of doll enthusiasts. But we were able to do enough talking back and forth to make me confident
about her and sure I wanted to bid. I was the only bidder so I won. She arrived in only two days, and was extremely well-packed. However, my first look at her was disconcerting because I saw her from the feet looking up toward the head - which was turned sideways - and she looked ...not much at all as I had expected from the auction. She had a somewhat opened mouth and just stared; she was on her side and looked altogether different from what I had expected to be the first sight of her. I took her out and at that point she did look more like the photos because I was seeing her from the front. But right away I could tell there was something about her I had not noticed from her auction: the neck. The Regina Swialkowsky "Angelina" sculpt has a VERY large neck. I realize that any neck would seem large by comparison to Nate's little neck, but this one was large compared to any baby's neck, and - more importantly - it was large even for her own head and body. Not TOO large for her head, but just a very stout neck. I even pressed her cheeks in, to see if that would make her look more like my baby photo ...and
it did. But of course they came right out again when I stopped squeezing. I tried to think of girls' names which would suit her better than the one I had been planning, because that one really didn't. And of all the beautiful girls' names I like, I could think of none that sounded right for her.
I went to the store and looked at the little baby girl dresses, and none of them seemed as though they would look all that pretty on her. Matter of fact, I had the strange feeling that putting the dresses on her would be as though I were trying to fool someone ! Finally, when I was back at home messing around putting a baby hat on her head, it struck me: she was a perfectly good representation of what a little boy of mine would look like ...IF my children had resembled me. My two children scarcely resembled me one bit as babies or little kids. Only when they got to about age 13 did they begin to look like me. That was it. This was a beautiful plump little baby boy who resembled me. Something I would never get to have in real life, given that both of mine didn't, and I am not going to be having any more natural children. I wrote to the artist. I pointed out a mistake she had made in clothing size and then told her I wanted to make this baby into a boy. I asked her if I could send the clothing and pacifier back and in return get a blue paci instead of pink, and if possible one boy's outfit sized 3 months. She responded immediately and very graciously; in fact she told me she would send those things and that I didn't even have to send back the other clothes and pacifier (I did though). And what she sent me was a wonderful green corduroy Christmas outfit from Kohl's with the tag still on it ($26). It even had matching little slippers ...very sweet. Now here is something interesting: one thing I noticed soon after the baby arrived is that the right lower eyelash was not glued in quite so well as the left; there was a tiny section of the strip which had come loose. Without thinking too much about whether this was a good idea or not, I just pulled the whole strip off. Then with tweezers I took the left lower lashes off to match. There were several little pinpoints of glue left on the vinyl of the lower eyelid, and after asking several people how best to remove that, I took that off with tweezers also. It was a big improvement; the lower lashes had not looked very realistic. On the other hand, without them he looked a little bit robbed of something. So about a month later, I made marks with a L'Oreal HIP eyeliner pencil in brown, after disturbing the surface gently with non-acetone nail polish remover. Later, I removed the eyeliner pencil and replaced it with some watercolor pencil in Van Dyke Brown.
So now Nate has a big brother, Marky. I'm thrilled to have a second baby doll, because they stay side by side and look as though they enjoy one another's company.
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