When I was a little girl I played like a girl, but when I became a woman I put away childish things; or something like that.

What am I talking about, you ask?

I’m talking about this new trend with grown women playing with dolls. Only, they aren’t playing. Have you heard about this?   Oh I hope I don't offend anyone, here but I just got to be honest, I really, really  don't understand this one. Help me.

There are these dolls that look like real babies, only they are not, and women are ordering them (online of course) and treating them as if they are real. Seriously. The Today Show had a segment on showing these women cuddling these baby dolls. They carry them around swaddled in blankets and dressed in baby clothing. One woman had the darn doll strapped in an actual car seat that was buckled in the back seat of her car. She drove to her destination, I think it was a grocery store. She gets out of the car goes to the back seat and unbuckled the car seat and carried it, doll in tow, into the store, just as if it were her child. She was actually talking to the doll as if she were talking to a real, live baby.

In the store a woman came up to the doll and bent down looking at it. She was up close too. She’s telling the mom “Oh she is so cute. What a doll.” The doll owner is like, “Yes, she is.” The woman touched the doll, thinking it was a real baby and then jumped back when she realized it wasn’t real.

When the news reporter asked the startled woman what she thought of the whole thing, she said, “I think it’s creepy.”

I AGREE!

I don’t get it. This world has just gone nuts. Who are these people?

One doll lover said she has 28 of them from infant to toddler. She said she and her husband turned one room of their home into a nursery for the dolls.

OK. I can understand if you just want to collect the dolls. You know look at them, even dress them up in cute little outfits. That’s fine. I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t even play with baby dolls when I was a little girl. Give me a note pad and a pen, a tape recorder a typewriter and I was happy. I did like paper dolls. Those were fun. I think I liked cutting out the clothing most of all, though.

But these women are acting like the dolls are real and then subjecting other folks in public to their quirky behavior. I’m sorry but I just thing there is something a bit sick about this.

It kind of reminded me of that movie staring Rebecca De Mornay as the villain who comes into a woman’s house as a nanny and then thinks the other woman’s baby is hers. Ewww…

It would be one thing if they women who do this, did it tongue and cheek. But no they are absolutely serious about it. Saying things like its comforting to come rush home to your baby and cuddle with it. It’s soothing. And some of these women have had their own children and raised them and said they just miss holding a baby. So this is the next best thing. Without all the responsibilities of a real baby. You know, no crying or pooping. I don’t know about you, but if it don’t eat, don’t cry and it don’t poop than ain’t nothing real about it because those are the only three things a real baby does. Oh, except coo and smell amazing.

Somebody please explain to me why someone isn’t suggesting that these women go, fast, to the closest shrink. Don’t get me wrong, I love cuddling babies. They are amazing. A friend of mind recently had a baby and when she brought little Mariella over to show her off to me. I took her right out of her arms and held the adorable little bundle the entire time they spent visiting with me.

But I didn’t want to run out and buy me one.

I’m sorry but I think it is just stupid for a grown woman to walk around in a grocery store with a baby doll wrapped in her arms while she stands there rocking it and checking out the produce.

It’s not a real baby. It’s plastic. If you saw grown man sitting in the floor of the store with a toy mustang and pushing in around making va-room, va-room sounds, you’d think he just lost his marbles, wouldn’t you?

So, tell me, what’s the difference with a grown woman holding and rocking a plastic baby, stroking its fake hair and talking to it?