So instead of trying to recreate that post, I'll tell you about one of the Christmas group gifts to our children that I have gotten a lot of chuckles over, both before and after the children opened it: boy Barbies. You see, the girls inherited a modest collection of lady and little girl Barbies from my childhood and from their cousins Emily and Sarah, but they have never had any Ken dolls or little boy dolls. So this Fall I noticed that Sunny in particular would do her best to dress some of the ladies, those with the shortest hair and less made-up faces, in the most masculine of the ladies' clothing and pretend they were men. (Rebecca, your Marie Osmond doll from our childhood was the "man" most often!) So I decided the girls needed some men, to make "real" Barbie families with. I did not want to buy new Barbies, because they are expensive, and because I really am trying to avoid buying plastic toys, and because my kids would be completely happy with dolls in good used condition--but two pleas on freecycle did not score me any free used ones. So, I hit eBay, and after a good month of optimistically bidding low (and therefore not winning--even used on eBay those dolls are expensive!), finally scored two Excellent Used Condition dolls and two New In Box dolls--having to get new because I wanted brown-skinned men too, and those are harder to come by.
Smiley also got his first "dolls" this year, and when I started researching GI Joe action figures on eBay, LOOK what I found:
Johnny Reb and Billy Yank! What an awesome way to wrap up a semester of studying the Civil War. (You can even find General Grant and General Lee GI Joes on eBay--if you have the $ to throw down for those!)
I wrapped up the North and South GI Joes in one box for Smiley, and then the other male Barbies in a box for the girls (along with plenty of EUC Barbie babies, since you know once all the women have men, babies will follow ; ). And as I did, I could see with my mind's eye how my kids would likely, enthusiastically, play with them all, what with our recent immersion in the Civil War and all. . . . Poor Malibu Steven--your world of fun and leisure is about to drastically change:
Sure, enough, within minutes of opening the Barbies (the very last gift opened), poor Steven and the other brown-skinned Barbies were forced into slavery and bossed around by Plantation Mistress Barbie (her husband, Johnny Reb, was away fighting in the war). Marie Osmond became a woman passing as a man to spy for the North, and my old long-shorn Skipper played a Union drummer boy (because she was too young to enlist). Other Barbies were Quakers who did not believe in slavery and wanted no part in the war (because, yes, Mother, we watched "Friendly Persuasion" at the end of our study unit).
This is the kind of imaginative schooling-fueled play my kids do all the time. I have heard it is not, um, usual. In fact, I was telling my (fellow homeschooling) friend Sara about all this yesterday, and she laughingly encouraged me to blog about it--because she thought what my kids did with their Barbies was such a refreshing change from the normal princess stories most Barbie dolls are trapped in by our culture. I guess she's right--but without public schooling and TV and radio and magazines, we are pretty out of the loop of what everyone else does with their dolls, and this all seems perfectly normal to me.
Although on a more serious note for a minute--when I watch my kids re-enacting in their play (whether Barbies, or dress-up, or backyard romping with friends) the things I am putting in their minds through school, and documentaries, and books, and reading the Bible, it makes me awed at the responsibilty of that. They truly are little sponges, in their hearts and minds.
Here's a photo of the girls, late afternoon on First Christmas, still in their pajamas (and the new handmade pj bottoms from my Mother) and surrounded by newly opened gifts, already immersed in all things Barbie:
I so hesitate to share photos of my house when it is not looking its best--but let's face it, that's pretty much all the time, and this shot so perfectly summed up the contented close of First Christmas. And shows you all just how big my living room/master bedroom suite is, esp. with a Christmas tree. : )
There's actually more open floor space between the living room and kitchen, in what we call the entry, where Smiley got out his trains to enjoy some of the new train track he received:
And I might as well wrap this up with a few more photos from our gift-opening on First Christmas, originally intended for that lost post (too many of my photos turned out blurry, there in the dim light of the living room when I did not have the right setting on the camera. So that's why I don't have any more good pics of the two eldest! These are just the few that turned out halfway decent.):
Thanks for the ornaments, Grandma! (She's standing on the trunk that you see in the Barbie sprawl pic, which had been pushed over to our bed during the excavation of gifts from under the tree, in case you were wondering why she appears so tall. I'm taking these photos from my comfy seat at the foot of my bed.)
Smiley loves this adorable jacket my mother made him for Christmas--I'll have to get a good pic of him in the whole outfit and post it. : )
The kinds of sweet and simple handmade gifts the kids make for us and each other. (It's a, um, colored snowflake? Paper doily? Whatever--it took some serious time and creative effort to make, and that's the real gift.)
I'm having flashbacks of my childhood. That picture of your girls playing Barbies - I grew up with four sisters and our favorite toys were our Barbies. We never had Civil War reenactments with them, but we spent HOURS playing together. Such wonderful memories!! The fact that your kids are incorporating their studies is adorable :)
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