This morning, within minutes of waking.
Wednesday received her first Barbie doll sometime ago, I think maybe over a year? She was playing with Barbies at a friends house which was part of an overnight trip out of town and as a reward for being a super duper awesome child, we bought her her own barbies. Nothing fancy, two fairy barbies that didn't even come with shoes. (Little pieces and airways and all that.)
This afternoon, directly after getting home from playschool.
After that though, well, just about every trip to the thrift shops resulted in at least one naked, matted hair Barbie doll coming home with us. She has amassed quite the collection, both new and (very) used since. But I tell you, for being three and a half they are her favourite toys. She brings them to bed with her (they sit patiently on the night tables waiting for her to wake up.) she acts out different things she has learned from the nursery rhymes at play school to real life situations she has been through like time outs.
Dinah loves to sleep in the Barbie suitcase (scored for a dollar! at the local charity shop.) full of clothes.
Last week we played dress the Barbies together. She always undresses my dolls though?!
For Christmas, my main gift to her was a Barbie backpack filled with Barbie dolls. babrie clothes, and babrie shoes all found on Ebay. For a song, I found Wednesday all the vintage(and not so) babrie clothes and shoes I had been scouring thrift shops for (and coming up unsuccessfull 98% of the time.)
The radius of clothing, shoes and dolls can get pretty big for such a little girl with limited space.
Her interest would wane and then come back double time. But lately, her barbie play is non-stop. From the moment she wakes up (as in the first photo of the post) until she goes to bed (with Barbies on the nightstand) she is wrapped up in imaginative play with these dolls.
Clothing I made from discarded t-shirt sleeves and some leftover 1/4" elastic.
Some folks might not think Barbies are age appropriate for a three year old but I think Barbie is for every age (minus the wee ones) there are Barbies for eveyone. For the first months (almost year) of playing with the dolls, Wednesday did not want clothing on them, when at a friend's house, the first thing she would do was undress the Barbies. Then she discovered shoes. And then clothing came shortly after it, so that now she regularly spreads the suitcase of clothing around her play space. She has a ridiculously sized collection that was compounded at Christmas (Thanks Ebay, Uncle Rob & Uncle Matthew!) And I am having some trouble finding a satisfactory storage system (I just don't have the wall/door space that the super duper awesome clear shoe holder calls for) but it just fills me with joy to watch her play for hours on end with these dolls.
Today, showing off her "Rock & Roll pants". Coincidentally, that is one of her two first Barbies.
I'll worry later about Barbie's measurements and always fantastic hair having an adverse effect on Wednesday's self esteem. For now she is a little girl who loves all of her dolls equally for different reasons. She loves to dress and undress them, she loves to mix and match clothing and shoes and she loves to name them different names, sometimes after her friends and sometimes completely made up one (my favourite is Stacia.) but most importantly she loves to play. I can let her do that and feel like we are both winning.
P.S. For those Mamas with large naked Barbie collections I reccomend
this seller for shoes. You receive lots of different kinds, and bonus is some of the open toe shoes fit the cheap Wal-mart Barbies even better than the shoes that came with them.
Also, for clothing, I did searches for
lot barbie clothes used on Ebay and this got me some great auctions. Don't fight the collectors, watch them until they are almost up and bid what you are willing to pay. I scored some great clothing and accessory lots that way, at Christmastime no less.
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