Playing with Dolls

My mother comments when we go into department stores’ toy sections that there are hardly any baby dolls.  It’s true there are not very many choices in baby dolls anymore.  I don’t think children really play with dolls the way we did when we were little and before the invention of Barbie. 

            I wonder if kids don’t know how to play Mommy because their mothers go to work?  My mother can tell you the story of me playing House.  I would stand in the middle of the room and swing my hips like fury while I whisked with an imaginary bowl and beater.  I was making whipped cream, I said.  My mother laughed as she realized that she must have been standing just like that in the kitchen while she used the hand held mixer (no electric appliances back then) while she beat up her cream or eggs.  I had an eagle eye for watching all her moves around the house and I imitated every one of them.

            Classic Sanne.  Hands on hips, one hand raises and points, shaking finger at the culprit.

            “You better smarten up, or else.”

            When I had to watch over my siblings I would march into the kitchen and simply shake the drawer with the wooden spoon in it and all would fall to submission (except John).  I didn`t even have to take out the wooden spoon, I could hear Peter and Erik flying into their bunk beds.

            My dolls were even more docile, I never had to turn them over my knee to spank them.  I usually just liked to change their clothes and then lay them in the little wooden apple crate that was turned into a bed (remember when apples came in those wooden crates with the handle).  Then I would read them a story from one of the little Hans Christian Andersen booklets that we got one Christmas.  It even had a little cardboard box made like a book shelf so we could put the booklets neatly away.

            In the summertime we mostly played outside.  There was an ancient weeping willow tree in the corner of our backyard but belonged to the Rolstons.  We used to play under that tree all summer long and Little Susan would bring out all her baby dolls and real crib and real high chair and all the clothes.  Goodness but she had a lot of clothes.  Mrs. Rolston’s friend back in Nova Scotia would make all kinds of dolls clothes so Susan always came back from her summer vacation with new clothes for her dolls.  My mother was too busy making clothes for real live to children to have much time to make doll clothes but she did once in a while.  I had some nice knit baby outfits for my Mary.  Susan and I would play House for hours. 

            Playing dolls was a quiet game but we had hours of fun.  I hardly remember what we would say when we played house.  I just remember having a good time.