Toy Box

If you ask my girls what they want to be when they grow up, they'll tell you they want to be rock stars or archaeologists, detectives or spies, wizards or dragon farmers (and by this I mean someone who hatches, raises and trains dragons -- preferably the fire-breathing kind) and in Chloe's case -- a vampire.

And so, not surprisingly our toy box and book shelves are filled with things that center around these illustrious careers. We have night vision goggles, remote control helicopters, dragon figures, pirate ships, dinosaur bones, an impressive OLOGY book collection, and 3 Monster High dolls.

That's right.. 3 of them. 99% of the time these dolls sit on Chloe's dresser, posed in some ghoulishly frightening position, waiting for their chance to get played with. They wait you see, because the only time dolls get played with in this house is when we have company over.

This weekend for example, was one of those time. On Saturday the girls played Smurf village and spent the day setting up a Smurf village (tedious but necessary) and then took out their Model Magic clay and proceeded to make all the evil nasty Wizard things Gargamel would need for his laboratory. They never actually played with the village, they just wanted to make creepy spell books and plasticine skulls and potion bottles. That was fun.

On Sunday they decided to be spies. They spent the day (well the part when we weren't at the pool) running around the house with night-vision goggles on, recording strange message, making video recordings of Gunther and I at our computers and walkey-talkeying back and forth for hours. It was all very secret and hush-hush. I'm waiting to see if I find little piles of fingerprint dust anywhere.

And then, on Sunday night, their cousin came to visit and she asked to play dolls so the dolls came down. The dolls with fangs and pointy ears. The dolls that are supposed to be a teenaged vampire, werewolf and Frankenstein monster. The dolls that my girls find interesting in principle, but never actually play with. Only those dolls were too creepy so they had to dig out a bin of even older dolls they keep at home for just such an occasion.

Because you see, my girls don't really like dolls. They never really have except for a month or two when they thought they liked Bratz dolls (hence the bucket of dolls that never gets played with) and the Monster High dolls they insisted they would play with -- after 8 months they are still in like-new condition. These dolls who will be placed once again on Chloe's dresser until the next girl friend comes to play.

And to this I say "so what?" So my girls like vampires and monsters and Pokemon and Yugioh (I probably spelled that wrong). So my girls think dragons and magic and mummies and books about the most disgusting facts are cool and only want to read books with secret envelopes and decodable messages. So my girls think bugs and bats are adorable and would give their eyeteeth for a pet lizard. So what?

They're still girls, still female, still the precious people I think are creative and wonderful and full of imagination and possibilities. And if they don't like dolls? Well that's about 100 little shoes I never have to worry about finding matches for isn't it?