Daddy Doll

Johnnie left for deployment when Cameron was only 6.5 weeks old.  That is too young to have developed memories so I do things daily to make Cameron familiar with her daddy in hopes that she will recognize him and be comfortable with him when he returns.  She hears his voice and sees his face whenever he calls on Skype or FaceTime, she hears his voice reading her stories in some record-a-story books a dear friend bought for us, and she sees his face in photographs.

Now she has one more thing to help form a connection... a Daddy Doll!  I purchased Cameron's Daddy Doll from www.daddydolls.com.  We got the one-sided 17-inch doll which is almost as big as her!  Daddy Dolls are a great tool for helping children cope with having a parent who is deployed or who travels often for work.  In Cameron's case, it will simply help her learn and memorize her daddy's face.

Cameron does actually stare at her daddy's face on the doll and babbles to it once in a while :)

I took a photo of Johnnie in his deployment uniform (which he'll be wearing the next time we see him) in front of a white background.  I removed the background in Photoshop, uploaded the photo to the Daddy Doll company, and they created the doll.  Please note that the company requests "ONLY Upload Original, UNEDITED image files. We will crop the subject to best fit the product, and remove background for dolls." With my education and experience with Photoshop, I knew that I could remove the background as well as or better than anyone else so I chose to do it myself.  No one complained :)

The doll is a plush pillow made of soft micro-fiber fabric.  They use an advanced printing technology that produces "a "no-feel" image that is dyed into the fabric, so it won't peel or crack and is completely machine washable."

Daddy Dolls can be one-sided or two-sided.  If you choose a one-sided doll, you pick from a variety of fabrics to go on the back.  I chose the multicam fabric which matched Johnnie's uniform.  The text below the photo is free but limited to 18 characters, including spaces.  There is a pocket on the back of the doll for keepsakes or the optional voice recorder.

Maybe I should've gotten one for Dulce as well.  She misses her daddy too!

*******

"Distance never separates two hearts that really care,

for our memories span the miles and in seconds we are there.

But whenever I start feeling sad, because I miss you, I remind

myself how lucky I am to have someone so special to miss."

~Henri JM Nouwen