Family Life

The Magic Attic Doll Collection is Part of Alene's Wish List.

Sometime in their lives most girls choose to play with dolls in one way or another. I suppose I should not be surprised that my girls are so normal. However, I am chagrinned to discover that I am so hesitant to facilitate their play in this arena. I have no explanation for my antipathy, and no logical reason to actually hinder them. So, I have been pleased to allow Gramma and Aunts and Friends to bless my three girls with a variety of dolls.

They were given two whole bags of Barbie type dolls and accessories. Rebecka has a My Little Pony talking plush baby doll, an Our Generation Baby Sitter set, and a New Born Cabbage Patch Baby. Esther has a Dora the Explorer Big Sister Talking Doll with the hard plastic baby twins. Alene has several hand-me-down dolls, the best of which Esther drew all over with permanent marker.

We have two fat bodied 20" baby dolls that wear my (now 40 years old) saved newborn baby clothes. However, both dolls have been removed from active play because the girls refused to clean up their rooms. The clothes, too, have gone back into a hidden box somewhere under some bed in their room. There is a nice, swinging doll bed that fits a doll up to 21". After two straight weeks of finding Esther using it for a ladder, and Rebecka dragging it through the house and leaving it in traffic lanes, and Alene refusing to help keep it safe and it its place.... Well, it is dismantled and in a box awaiting a day when it can be returned to a responsible child. Even Rebecka's newly acquired Baby Sitter doll and all her accessories have been removed from play.

So, knowing how uncareful my three girls have been in the recent past, why am I even remotely curious about finding them new dolls? Even I think myself crazy, but I do have a plan. In time for Mother's Day, I want to be ready to label all their extra and unmanageable toys for a garage sale (or Craig's List or eBay). Barbie Castle, Mega Blocks, a hundred little useless toys, incompatible dolls, outgrown books and forgotten treasures (as well as my excess stuff). In order to "clean house" in this way without causing premature angst development, I figure a plan for each girl to earn her own set of toys should be presented and started.

A great set of multi-cultural dolls that encourage kids to get involved and make a difference.

Don't get me wrong. All the toys we have been have been great blessings. The girls have never lacked for things to play with. But, for awhile there, we were picking up lots of really cheap and foolish toys. We filled our prize box with Dollar Store things, and let the girls collect Kids Meal toys. We have a shelf full of little board books that even Rebecka is growing out of. And now that they understand the rules for Mommy's Legos there isn't a need to keep the buckets of MegaBloks. And the list goes on.

The girls room is full of toys that just get in the way. They spill out into the hall, get dragged into and dropped in the living room, make their way onto the front porch, and are constantly being left underfoot. So, I am looking to build on things of quality, rather than quantity.

Since it is such a recurring theme in their weekly play time, I have actually been shopping for dolls. Every day each of the girls express their desire for something that they don't have. The usual wish comes out as a whine or a begging or a complaint. However, Esther has quietly asked for a nice doll of her very own. She takes one of Alene's soft dolls to bed most nights, and even brought it to me for washing once. That is quite un-usual for the little 5-year-old whom we have nicknamed tornado.

Ginger Brook Hollow Dolls come with a storybook about a small orphanage where the characters live.

So there is great variety and great disparity in our household. The Barbie stuff is hardly ever played with because it is so hard to dress the dolls, and the playthings are so small. Clothes for one doll don't fit any of the other dolls. Esther's and Alene's dolls don't enjoy playing with Rebecka's dolls. And Mom just smiles and says, you need to exercise your imagination some more.

Of course, in our very small house, I would love it if we could replace the Barbies and the Dora's and the hand-me-downs with two nice 16" to 19" dolls for each girl. Rebecka has her first one from the Our Generation collection, and I have been looking all over the internet to find the kind of doll that would complement that line.

Taryn, Brianne, Alexi and Jenna; the Maplelea Girls from Avonlea Traditions, Inc. A nicer doll for Canadian Girls.

I have found out that Gotz made the Sasha Dolls I used to play with at a friends house. They also manufactured the dolls of the American Girl label and had a line of Little Sisters and then Precious Day Dolls. American Girl had a line called Hopscotch Hill, it appears to have been retired as of 2006. Berengeur made a small collection of Classmates 18 inch dolls that can wear the American Girl clothes. Geoffrey, Inc. marketed and distributed a Laura Ashley Doll Collection. Heidi Ott made the Faithful Friends Collection for Target (I think); I would love to find these dolls because her dolls come from Switzerland. Madame Alexander had four doll collection product lines that fit my daughters' preferences, the Dear America, Sweet and Chic, Kelley and Ashley dolls. Meritus used to manufacture Girls On the Go, Elite Dolls, Paige and Alyssa, Pretty Girls, Disney Sweethearts Mindy (for Disney), and Lifetime Play Dolls. But I cannot find them anywhere online. Storybook Heirlooms Savannah and Friends Doll Collection have also been retired as have the The Magic Attic series of dolls.

Berenguer's Classmates is another hard to find line of Dolls.

There are still some really nice dolls in the 16 to 19 inch sizes. In Canada Avonlea Traditions manufactures the Maplelea Girls. Battat makes the Our Generation, Autumn Harvest, Ultimate Girls Club among others, and they are targeted at the really cheap end. Gali Girls, Inc. has the Gali Girls Dolls which have Jewish/Hebrew stories to go with them. And the Kids Give Karito Kids 19 plus inch dolls encourage generosity and charity in children in a very practical way. Mission City Press/Breezy Point Treasures manufacture A Life of Faith Dolls (Elsie Dinsmore and friends) which have all vinyl bodies (and are just on the edge of expensive for a play doll). Getting really expensive and perhaps worth it are the collections from Engel-Puppen, in Germany. I love the Gerlinde Series soft body jointed 19-1/4" dolls, Dorthea Series 17-3/4" soft body dolls, and the Animal Connection Series 18" soft body Dolls that come with a stuffed animal pet.

Laura Ashley designed these dolls, and put quality in the hands of every day girls.

So, I have spent 4 days online shopping for dolls that I will never buy (unless I find one at a garage sale some lazy Saturday). I have found out that even dolls are fascinating if I can look for them in some research, fact finding, problem solving kind of way. I have also found out that eBay (and possibly Craigslist) is the best place to find dolls. And, something I could have told you last week -- before wasting these past few days and hours -- there are only two things I like about dolls: first, they inspire creativity (not play, but designing and making clothes, engineering and building furniture and structures) and second, they hold a wealth of writing possibilities.

Little Sisters: One of the product lines from Goetz that I really like.

I suppose I can be resigned to existing in a house with three girls who like dolls. If they keep them picked up. If they let me create things for them, from time to time. If they use them to learn responsibility and consideration. If they listen politely to my stories about their dolls.

Ted has observed more than once that we appear to be raising the next Gilda Radner. The thought has generated a long list of prayers and amusements. Like the other day...

In the van, Esther was squirreling around, making entirely too much noise, and disturbing everyone. Ted looked deeply into the rearview mirror and asked, "Esther, do you need me to thump you?"
"No, Daaaad!" was the snotty reply from the back seat.
"Do you need me to pinch your toes?" Dad teased again.
"No, Daaaad!" Esther laughed.
"Do you need me to squeeze your nose?"
"No, Dad! That would make me fart!"

Some days childhood can be so entertaining. Some days are filled with interesting things to do, fun things to try, exciting adventures to dash off into. Some days anything can happen, when you're a child.

Take this week, for example. The new Donut Warehouse, in Portland, has two rooms that hold special interest for our girls. One is an office dedicated to them -- their playroom. One is my office -- which also houses their computer and space for us to eat together as a family. Most of the time all three girls are content to play nicely in one room or the other.

However, if Mom and Dad should fail to run up the stairs to check on the playing cherubs every 3 minutes or less.... Well, disaster can be stored very compactly.

Ted returned upstairs on Tuesday to find that, with Alene looking on, Esther had taken the 8" left handed scissors from Alenes sewing basket and had cut her own hair and Rebecka's hair as well. Esther was not careful, and now sports a reverse Mowhawk.

On Thursday, silence was not golden either. Somehow the little girls got a hold of a permanent marker, and now they are decorated for Halloween. To bad Daddy took Haloween away from their blessing box for the stunt they pulled with the scissors. Now they are just frights!

We should have pictures up of their humanitarian decorating adventure soon. Until then, what should I do... Cut their hair so the damage is less noticeable? or Not.