Barbie Buddy

This weekend, I went garage saling again. It's sorta become my Thursday/Friday thing to do. I actually found one yesterday that had some Gymboree in my daughter's size, and it was marked cheap! Score! :) Then I drove by another sale that had a sign that said "50% off everything!" So of course I stopped. Another score! They had a whole gaggle of Barbie things with accessories !! And since I have a four year old, well, I wasn't about to pass that up... especially at half price! I picked up a bunch of sets with accessories to match... all for $13.00.

When I sat down to blog tonight, my mind was blank. I couldn't figure out what the heck to write about. And then it came to me...

Barbies! There's probably not a female on the planet who hasn't spent some time playing with those little plastic dolls. When I was younger, I'll bet I played Barbies more hours than I slept! My best friend and I would sit down in my basement all day creating exciting lives for Barbie, Skipper, and Ken. We'd build houses out of anything we could find... shoe boxes, suitcases, cereal boxes... you name it, we probably used it! We'd make tiny sandwiches for them to eat and miniature folders and notebooks so they could go to school. I'm pretty sure we even made clothes for them out of toilet paper and paper towels! One funny little tidbit was that between my Barbie Buddy and myself, we only had one male doll and one baby doll. So we took turns. Either you had the baby or the Dad... never both. You'd think we would have just begged our moms for another Ken doll but we never did. Or at least if we did, they never caved in and bought one for us.

Sometimes we'd move our Barbie playing outside and pretend they were having a campout. We'd use things in the backyard for them to climb on... lawn chairs, the clothes line, etc. Back in my day, Barbie had lots of cool accessories but we didn't have many of them. I longed for that wonderful pink Barbie townhouse and the swimming pool and Corvette... but had to make due without them. We did have the cool camper/van though.

As I grew older, it wasn't long before the Barbies were packed away and other interests took up my free time. My Barbie Buddy and I stayed friends all through high school (and we still see each other occasionally today!). We STILL talk about the days of sitting in my basement for hours on end. Such wonderful memories...

My four year old already has a few Barbies.... a couple of the Disney princesses and two or three that my mom has bought her for Christmas. She plays with them some now but I can only imagine the hours she'll spend playing with them over the next several years. Secretly, I am actually looking forward to the chance to play Barbies again with her! My garage sale purchases from this weekend should definitely come in handy. And maybe I'll even splurge and get her the townhouse AND the Corvette. A girl's gotta have the latest doll accessories, right?!?!

**Note to self... Buy more than one Ken doll... she'll need one to share with *her* Barbie Buddy!**