Lost in Imaginitive Play

When I was young my cousin and I lost entire days playing Barbies. I remember she had the original Barbie dream house (orange and white and google-able). I received mine a few years later (pink and white). My Barbie had some babies (from the Heart Family) but no man (but that could be because my cousin’s Barbie, (“Crystal” she called her) kept stealing my men (The Ken dolls)! And I refused to play with the blonde Ken who’s arms did not bend. My Barbie spent her time, changing clothes, shopping and driving around the neighborhood to the Barbie McDonalds.


Oh how I loved the cars. I had the Corvette, the Ferrari, a couple of Mustangs, (a jeep I took from my sister because she never played). I had several furniture sets…and yes I happen to still have them and of course the coolest dolls…like Dana from Barbie and the Rockers.

The great thing about imaginative play was we were free to do whatever we wanted, create a story. Our dolls were lawyers or teachers or secretaries who did gymnastics, they had parties, had children and cooked and took vacations.

Sadly the Barbie Dream House is only available on ebay and at the collector’s price, I probably wouldn’t open the box. However my daughter received a townhouse a few years ago as a gift but it was “too busy” and I refused to play in it and she also avoided it, using it more for storage than anything else. So this year she and I talked about remodeling it so that we can actually get inspired to play with it.

I photo documented the project ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/stacy1175/) and my daughter loves playing with it and the fact that she’s inheriting some pretty cool…great quality stuff.