Barbie Girl

"I'm a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world..."

One of my childhood loves was playing with my Barbies. I loved, loved, loved playing with them. I loved to dress them up, do their hair and- shock of all shocks!- design elaborate homes for them to live in (I guess I should have known that Interior Design was my calling from a very young age).I can remember summers playing Barbies with my cousins, Beth-Ann and Amy. 

This year, Katy received a Barbie and a Barbie car for Christmas. I knew she'd like them both because she a) loves dolls and b) loves cars. So, after we had presented the Barbie and car to her, I unpacked all of my childhood Barbies, furniture, clothes and accessories for Katy to enjoy. Katy had a BLAST!!! playing with all of the Barbies. 

Talk about a study in nature vs. nurture. Katy has (to the best of my knowledge) not seen a commercial, advertisement for Barbie. Yet, as soon as she opened her Barbie Christmas day, she knew that it was a Barbie and she knew exactly what to do with it once she saw all of the clothes, furniture, etc. from my childhood. 

It was so fun to see Katy interacting with the dolls I used to play with and come up with soap-opera-like histories for each doll. Katy did really well dressing the dolls, making them "pretend" to cook and interact with the kitchen accessories and drive the Barbie car. 

After playing with the Barbies for a good 45 minutes straight (that's like an eternity to a toddler!) two realizations came to light; a) my Barbies are a good 25+ years old so that made me feel old and b) We're going to need more room in the playroom to house all of Barbie's STUFF!