Nothing like a trip to Toys “R” Us or some other toy department to make you wish you were a kid again, not that I don’t wish that at other times.
On a recent stop at the kiddie heaven, I was goal oriented and accomplished that goal. However, I would like to have taken the time to stroll around the doll section since I am a real “doll person.” I received my first doll the day I was born from my godmother. It was a Storybook Doll called “Sugar and Spice” (which I still have in the box).
Now I believe, and Santa should agree, that little girls should receive a doll at Christmas, and, luckily, I always did. There was the year I received a Toni doll. For those of you who don’t remember, Toni home permanents were popular at that time. So they capitalized on the rage by making a doll that little girls could give permanents to, with the help of a sugar water formula. I coifed that doll so much I’m surprised I didn’t go into hair design and work at Basili’s.
Madame Alexander dolls were popular, more of a collector doll than a play-with doll. I still have them, but there was one year I almost didn’t get the doll.
I was a “snooper,” trying to find my presents before Christmas and then put on an Academy Award performance for surprise on Christmas morning. I found the doll I was to receive but didn’t get it on Christmas morn. Mom’s ability to know when something was out of place prevailed, and she kept it for another time-the surprise was on me.
The Madame Alexander dolls were pricey, somewhat similar to today’s American Girl dolls, which are also pricey. They have clothes that can cost as much as a real child’s outfit and accessories which rival decorations in your child’s room.
I liked baby dolls. I thought it was neat that you could give the baby doll a bottle of water and the doll would wet its diaper so you could change it. Why I thought that was go great, I’ll never know.
Years later when I had real babies and changed real diapers I knew where I had received my training and wondered why I thought it was fun to change diapers, because it isn’t.
They also came out with dolls that would crawl. Not well, but they crawled. The walking dolls looked more like robots than toddlers, and would stop when the batteries needed replacing, which seemed like every two yards.
Today’s baby dolls do more than they should, and leave nothing to the imagination. They eat they, they drink, they do it in their diapers, and talk-even being programmed to say a child’s name.
Every so often, the dolls would break, meaning it was time for a trip to the Wallace Doll Hospital in Berwyn, where the doll doctor fixed what needed to be fixed. Many a time I brought in a doll with a band-aid until it could get attention. I don’t think there is any place like that anymore.
The last doll I received was a Ken doll, you know, Barbie’s boyfriend. My mother gave him to me one year when she felt sorry for me because I didn’t have a boyfriend at Christmas. The next year she didn’t have to get me a “boy” doll. I met Joe, who later became Husband Joe.
I still like dolls, but my kids and grandchildren are the real dolls in my life now.