In our Barbie World

So somehow turning 5 flips a switch in a little girl's brain and suddenly Barbie is the most important person in the world! Out of the blue, right before Lea's birthday she told me that "Barbie is the greatest!" and she didn't even have a single Barbie.
So Lea got some Barbies for her birthday. She got Disney princess Barbies Belle & Sleeping Beauty who have their own little world in our bathtub. Ariel has become the step mother, but she's not evil. Everyone shares chores.

From one of her new school friends Lea got a Barbie pet groomer set with dogs that pee water on a special "newspaper" that turns yellow or brown. Lea LOVES the peeing dogs and the Barbies, but the grown ups think its kind of crazy.

But we also got what was termed a "bag of naked hand-me-down blondies." A friend brought the overflow Barbies to us. There were a lot of naked blondies.

At the consignment sale I got a bag of 80s clothes that including two shiny roller skating short outfits with suspenders and homemade wrap around dresses. But what does Lea like to dress the Barbies in? A pink slip. That's what I dressed my Barbies in! I remember them always going to sleep in a slip. I think because all the Barbie clothes look really pretty, but are hard to get on. The slip just slips on. Lea says that is the perfect dress for going to The Ball. All the Barbies, no matter their age go to The Ball at night. I don't know that any have ever really made it, but we've gotten them dressed and ready for their grand entrance that never quite comes. It is hard t get some of the dresses on the Barbies. Most of our Barbies are what Lea and I have taken to calling "sticky leg Barbies." It is the kind of plastic/rubber that the Barbie is made of. Some of the bendy leg Barbies have a rubber type of skin that makes their legs sticky when you slide on their clothes. When I told Lea they were "sticky leg Barbies" she ran off to the bathroom and tried to wash them, thinking I meant they had sticky stuff (like Lea gets sticky when she eats honey or jelly). I had to explain the "sticky leg Barbies" would always be sticky leg. That's they way they were made and we will love them and their sticky legs just the way they are. We just won't put jeans on them!

Also at the consignment sale we also got a little kitchen/bath set for $6 which Lea bought with her money. It all folds flat and has an external part with a door that has a doggie door. Then the kitchen and bath are separate. It came with plastic food: pieces of cake, water bottle, a pizza box and a bowl of chips (that Dan had to explain to me — I couldn't figure out what the yellow blobby bowl was!) The bath has a stand up shower and the laundry room. The washer and dryer really spin when you push a button, but they won't stay closed with any more than a bikini top in them. Laundry would take forever at that rate!

THEN I found my pink Samsonite case of Barbie clothes. It had a note on it (that I'm pretty sure I wrote in college) "Protect with Life. Barbie clothes." It was a treasure chest of all things Barbie. Some dolls, a ton of very fashionable clothes — if you're Cher pre-nose job! Yes, I had Cher and Cher's dressing room. I don't know what happened to my Cher doll (I remember her being taller than other Barbies) but I still have her Bob Mackie style clothes.

This is not Cher, but dressed in Cher's cast offs. This treasure has a turnable scalp so she can be blonde or brunette, but in her old age lives in a freaky Cruella DeVille meets Bride of Frankenstein style. Thus the hat!

But the best find in the pink Samsonite Barbie treasure trove was the blow up furniture! Yes, a whole room of green and brown striped blow up couches and chairs. Its like a bad 70s sit com.

Everyone is a sister that fluctuates in age from 3 to 16, except of course Ken in his make shift dolly clothes - he's dad and one Barbie is mom. How Lea can tell them apart is a skill specific to the 5 year old eye. They look the same to me, but they all have a different name and back story. There's (left to right) Ken, Skipper, Pretty, Starlight, Mom and Auntie Cher (who for some reason has a Southern accent like Elvis when its my job to talk her). Charlotte is not in this picture - Hey I guess I can tell them apart!

They eat and sleep more than any other activity, but sometimes Lea sends them on photo shoots or to gymnastics/swim class or other crazy adventures. That Barbie family never knows what's going to happen next.
But remember its no fun playing just one thing... We must play dress-up while playing Barbies!