A loss of innocence
<p>Lynn Schable, is seen next to her trio of "You and Me Interactive Triplets," on Friday in Meridian, Idaho. Schable says she was offended when she heard the baby doll utter profanities.</p>
Warning: The following story contains a word that some people may find offensive.
Lynn Schable was excited to buy the You & Me Interactive Triplet Dolls from Toys R Us earlier last week as a Christmas present for her triplet granddaughters.
The infant dolls looked cute and harmless. Dressed in different colored onesies, each equipped with a milk bottle, they looked like a lot of fun for a trio of 2 1/2-year-old girls.
But the girls won't be getting the dolls for Christmas. Schable says one of the dolls - the one in the pink onesie - says "bitch" in the midst of a stream of baby talk. Other customers have shared via the Internet that the doll appears to say "crazy bitch."
"I am just beside myself. ... What is this world coming to?" asked Schable, who intends to return the dolls to the Boise Toys R Us store on Milwaukee. "It's too bad. The dolls are just adorable. They would have been (the girls') favorites, I'm sure."
Toys R Us Inc. has received at least one other complaint about You & Me Interactive Triplet Dolls, from an attorney in Arkansas. But company officials say the doll does not swear and that any sound similar to a swearword is just coincidence.
"What you are hearing is baby babble," Toys R Us spokeswoman Jan Albano said Friday.
"My babies don't babble like that," Schable says.
Albano said Toys R Us has no plans to take the dolls off store shelves, which is what Fort Smith, Ark., attorney Joey McCutchen demanded last month.
Albano said the dolls are exclusively manufactured for Toys R Us. They retail for $39.99 on the store's website. Five of the seven customer reviews on the website mention that they have heard the pink baby say the word "bitch," or emit a sound similar to that.
Schable said she found out about the issue when looking up her purchase on the Internet Thursday night.