I want everyone to know on here, that my daughter is a 5-year old prodigy. She is the only child I know, who counts Arsenic and Old Lace as her favorite movie. And the only one I know, who can actually sit through a story (lacking a lot of illustrations), without getting up, running a lap around the house, asking "when we're done, can I watch Spongebob".
With this doll thing she has going on, it was her idea to come to me with this book, asking me to start reading it to her. And I can't really describe the warm feeling that it gives, when you are able to read a story aloud, and have your child laugh at the way your voice animates it, asking you to repeat that part again. And on top of that-- beg you to read another chapter before they go to bed!
Last month, I started reading The Doll People, the first of a three-part series, written by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin. It's about a family of Victorian-era dolls, who have been passed in the home through a couple of generations. The main doll, Annabelle, is the daughter doll, who goes on an adventure in search of her Aunt Sarah-- another doll who went missing 50 years before.
We finished that book. And the moment we did, my daughter grabbed the 2nd in the series, and asked me if I could read just a chapter from that before going to bed. (That book is called The Meanest Doll In The World, where The Runaway Dolls is book number three.)
Nonetheless, it's a great feeling to find that bond with your child, where you can spend some time together that would otherwise be wasted, watching cartoon reruns, if you ended up telling them they had a half hour left before bedtime.
Making New Memories Out Of Ones In Boxes
When my mother passed away (a little over 14 1/2 years ago), one of her possession that I was left with was a plastic bag of doll furniture. I remembered them as a child, because my mother would pull them out whenever she was cleaning out her closet. She would put the furniture out on the bed, whereas, aside from that, I was not allowed to touch them beyond her supervision.
With this dollhouse roll going on, I ended up getting another one at Michaels the other day. I thought with this one, I could bring out the furniture, and display it in the rooms for my daughter to look at. And once again (sans child), I threw this one together, not even venturing into the buttons and whatnots.
Of course I had to get another one, because the perfectionist in me, isn't too pleased with the outcome. (I just wasn't too enthused in the embellishments, after spending two hours trying to figure out how this all fit together.)
There are kids who are destructive (which I say in the most enduring way, because it didn't occur to me when my teenager was younger, to perform such a feat like this). And then there's other kids-- like her sister, who have a more calmer disposition and whom I can see taking special care in her play. And it's not like that's a bad thing. It's just the nature they are born with. (Such as the spiteful one, concerning my teenager, that made me delete her from my facebook account the other day!)
