In my last post, I got carried away with my doll story. I didn't know just how much dolls factored into my history. I had so much to say, that I decided to make a different post about dolls so that my readers wouldn't think I didn't have any other interesting facts about myself to post on the "tagged" line. So here's some more facts (ma'am) about dolls I have loved.
My sister and I used to try and play with Barbie dolls out in Ethiopia. You were a "cool" kid if you had a Barbie from the States. Even amongst missionary kids, there are the haves and the have-nots. We unfortunate souls, only had Barbie look-alike dolls, and every connoisseur of Barbies knew ours weren't the real deal. But we made the best of it. We even commandeered Mango seeds and put felt-marker -eyes on them to make them into replica Ken dolls. They were a very poor imitation, but with our imaginations, we thought they were a great substitute. O.k. That is totally not true. We longed for the real deal Barbies and the real deal Ken dolls, but we made do with what we had.
- Somewhere along the line, as an adult, I got a replacement Penny doll too (I had naively given mine away after we returned to Canada to a little girl across the street in a fit of generosity that I regretted almost immediately.) When they were little, I used to offer my kids the Penny and Coffee dolls to help them to go to sleep. They knew that the dolls were very precious to me but I was generously offering them the dolls to give them comfort while they slept. It seemed to work for the most part. The dolls would always come back to me in the morning. They now live in a "special box" downstairs so I can pass them onto my kids who may want to use them for their kids. (kinda pathetic I know...they both have plastic bodies...not very expensive. But lots of memories!)
- I bought my sister a porcelain Coffee doll for a Christmas present one year. I made the payments in installments and loved going into the shop and dreaming about how pleased she would be to get the doll. However, when I got it home, I realized that I couldn't part with it and so I adopted Coffee. My apologies to my sister (Although I am not reallys sorry.... The shop had given the doll the name Mary, but I am more partial to Coffee, so I remaned her. She sleeps in my room along with her dog-eared bunny rabbit that our dog Kola took a liking to and would chew whenever she could sneak it out of Coffee's crib.
- My #1 son, took Barbies and whacked their heads off. My daughter played with Barbies ever so briefly. I may have overloaded her in an attempt to make up what I didn't have growing up. I don't think she knew the difference. She was too busy trying to rescue the Barbie heads from her brother.
- Somewhere along the line, I began using "Dolly" as a nickname for my daughter. I am not sure she really liked it, but I used to tell her that she was my real live doll. I loved dressing her and doing her hair. The thing about a live doll though, is that they can undo their hair as fast as you can put it up. And the clothes? It wasn't very long before I realized that she had a definite sense of what she loved and what she didn't, and usually what I loved was what she didn't. At least she hasn't stopped me from calling her "Dolly". And I love her more than any of my other dolls. She's my favorite.
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