Playing with dolls. This will take some thought, some restraint, because I can't release
a deluge of memory to show you all at once.
Small dolls, 2 inches tall or less: "Doll house" dolls. The girl doll with her arms up was my favorite. She
could do everything. She took care of the 'boy, girl in a dress, & the baby' dolls. She built houses for them
from blocks & lincoln logs and then lived somewhere else, by herself. I made house boat rafts for her to go
down the (imaginary) river on. I made a dress for her so her missing leg didn't show.
Sometimes I buried these little dolls in the sandbox in a jar, to see if they could survive.
My favorite little one I put in a walnut shell & hung out on the limb of a maple tree overnight,
for the same reason. I didn't name these dolls. They didn't really talk to each other.
Baby dolls: I dressed them and wrapped them in lots of blankets. I played that we had no house &
I needed to keep us alive. I had a vague notion that holding an infant to a woman's chest (through clothing)
helped it survive. I had never seen a woman nurse a baby, but knew that on Christmas cards Mary held the
little baby to her chest.
I had a doll that said prayers when you wound her up. I named her Lucy. At the same time, age 4, I had a
blonde doll who made sounds. I called her CryBaby. I fed them somehow, and that knocked their teeth out.
I didn't mean to do that. I gave CryBaby haircuts because I thought her hair was growing. It didn't.
I got a doll that wet from a hole on her buttocks. This was kind of fun because it was playing with water. My
boy cousins pretended to be grossed out. I thought that was silly because it was only water, not real pee.
I didn't question why the doll peed from such a funny location. It was a doll. Anyway I didn't know humans
had openings down there. I thought it just came out osmotically.
Fashion Dolls: I liked saving money to buy new outfits for my doll. It was too bad her feet only let her tip-toe,
but she did have fancy grown up high heels, the kind ladies are supposed to like. It was too weird playing dolls
with other girls. They wanted your doll to have a name and you should change your own name. I didn't like that.
I collected more than 4 dozen fashion dolls later, when I was grown, particularly used dolls from resale shops.
Paper Dolls: These I still have. I liked to line those up and their clothes. Same problem about playing with them
with other girls. [I keep saying 'other girls.' There wasn't a flock of them. Just the ones next door and the one
across the corner.] They wanted to have names and make pretend with the paper dolls. I didn't get into that.
Inventorying the wardrobe was what I liked.
Sock Doll: I liked to toss her up in the air in the backyard or my bedroom. Flying Lessons. This was better
than doing it to the cat. I thought he would enjoy flying through the air onto my bed. I wanted to fly through
the air and bounce around. My mother said the cat did not share that idea and I should not do that. But throwing
the sock doll was ok. Also making parachute guys out of clothes pins.
Puppets: I liked making puppets, but not using them. They are kind of creepy when they are empty and I don't have
anything for them to say when they are on my hand that they can't say off of my hand.
