Kid Stuff

Childhood crap, what a minefield.  I will say things got easier a few years ago as it has been increasingly statistically impossible for me to have biological offspring of my own, thus freeing me from the pretense that I should be saving anything for my kids, either from them to play with, or reminisce over.

Exhibit "A" is my first real doll.  I mean,  I definitely had other dolls, stuffed toys and whatnot, but this was the one I would have been dressing up and giving a baby bottle and hauling around in a toy stroller or something.  I was late to the game wanting this, but but parents obligingly got her for me when I rather suddenly insisted I needed a doll.  A named her "Adora" because I adored her.  Someone, possible my godmother, sewed that little yellow dress.  The pink jacket was at some point commandeered and assigned to one of the cats, who did not care for it at all and would walk around backwards when forced to wear it.  Adora was joined shortly, at Christmastime, by "Wake-up Thumbelina."  My mother, trying to do the right thing, got me the African-American version, so my doll family looked a little odd, but so does my real one, so that was ok.  Thumbelina is long gone, abandoned I suppose when the mechanism that allowed her to turn over (that was her schtick) wore out.  See, this is why I decided i probably wouldn't be the world's best mother.  It's Adora's turn to go now.  She is blind and has some kind of plasticized version of leprosy.

Exhibit "B" is a rabbit puppet.  We were going through the booths at the county fair with my aunt and uncle and I really really wanted this and my parents didn't want to buy it for me (on principle or on account of cost, I don't remember), but my Aunt Florine bought it and gave it to me. I don't know why.  If I'd been whiny about it, I'm sure that would have put her off - we weren't close and I remember her as a bit harsh and strict, so I don't know what possessed her.  I think the thing was seven dollars.  My allowance at the time was probably about 35 cents a week.  So, I named the rabbit Annie, even though that was already my sister-in-law's name.  I conducted a little wedding ceremony between her and the same cat who was forced to wear my doll's jacket. 

Exhibit "C" is a hairbrush shaped like an alligator.  It was made by Avon and was once part of a set along with a green comb.  It got used to brush one too many cats and is pretty grungy now. 

Exhibit "D" is a copy of Gulliver's Travels.  Notable is that, although this is a children's version, it does not gloss over the method by which Gulliver put out the fire at the imperial palace.  I'm pretty sure I've seen a movie version that wimps out on that.