I (nearly) killed Baby

Before you all start to panic and come at me with pitchforks and angry faces, Baby is my daughter's beloved doll that she takes everywhere with her. Everywhere.

She is grotesque. And that is me being diplomatic.

This 'thing' plagues me (and probably carries some form of plague in the folds of it's threadbare outfit), but my baby girl adores Pink Baby.
Even though it stares up at you with one eye permanently closed and has a bit of an odd whiff about it, she will not let that grubby looking slightly offensive doll out of her sight.
The arms and legs are soft, filled material and only the head, hands and feet are plastic.
She has drawn on the hands in blue pen because "Baby wants a tattoo" and the 'hair' is starting to wear off.
But every night she cuddles up to her and every morning they have breakfast together, get dressed together (although Baby wears the same horrendous babygro).

I used to watch her coo and fuss over Baby and wonder at how little girls (even little girls who want to be little boys) mimic their mums by rocking their dolls in their arms or stroking their face or, in my case, holding her by one leg and tossing her on the sofa.

As I've mentioned before, anyone who asks: 'what is the dolly's name?" is treated to a withering stare as if you've just asked "can I cut your doll's head off" and she replies: "It's Baby". And you had best leave it at that.

Kind grandparents have tried buying replacements. She is not interested.

So today, I took it upon myself to wash 3 years of grime from Baby's little body.
I put her in the washing machine. With 2 big fluffy towels to soften the blow. I put her on gentle wash, 30 degrees.

When she came out the left side of her very hard head had caved in.
BABY'S HEAD HAD CAVED IN!
I was beside myself with panic. I tried to force it back into shape but the eyes just started to bulge and stare up at me, accusing me. And did I mention that the head was very hard?
So there was nothing for it. I had to operate. With pliers.
I grabbed Baby's ear and pulled.
Sure the head is back to something approaching normality now, but boy her ear looks weird.

I was dreading Mia coming home and noticing that mummy had defiled Baby so I was all 'look at how lovely and clean Baby is. Aren't you pleased?'
She looked her up and down, shoved her under her arm and said "s'ok, but she sure smells funny".

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