Barbie and Ken
I grew up in a very close family. I spent a great deal of time with my sisters because I liked them. We were always best friends. I am the youngest, but my older sisters always went out of their way to include me in what they were doing. I even went along on some of their dates. We have maintained a close relationship as adults and still spend a great deal of time together. Our children are close to each other and have fun together.
One of the fondest memories I have of childhood is playing in the toy room we had in the upper level of my parent’s farm house. All of our toys and games were kept in the room. Mom rarely yelled about how messy it was kept, because it was our room to play in. My sister and I would play with Barbie and Ken dolls for hours. We did not have a great deal of money so many of the outfits for Barbie and Ken were hand sewn by our mother. The clothes are so small that she could make entire outfits out of scraps of fabric that were left from clothes she made for us. This made playing with Barbie and Ken even more fun because we could dress them in the same things we were wearing.
When my mother moved out of the farm house into an apartment for the elderly we had the task of going through the five bedroom home to divide up things that we wanted and to get the other things ready for selling. In the attic we came across a large box that was filled with all of our Barbie accessories. There were several Barbie and Ken dolls as well as the hand sewn clothing. My daughter and my sister’s daughter were helping us go through things. When they saw the Barbie things they could not believe that they had not played with them as children. Some of the gowns that my mother had made were truly beautiful. I did not appreciate all the work and details that she had put into the outfits when I was a little girl. My sister and I picked out a dress that had been made from the scraps of our oldest sister’s prom dress. We dressed one of the dolls and took it to our mom’s apartment. We told her that she should have it on display to show others the detail that she had put into it. She told us that making the doll clothes made her feel like she was playing right along with us. She proudly displays the doll and gown in her apartment. My sister and I both picked out dresses and have our dolls displayed in our homes as well.
