Sean went out Friday night and I went out Saturday morning. We sent video messages to each other just to make the other person smile. Sometimes technology is pretty neat. Even if it is being used for something totally sappy and silly like this. Especially when it is being used for something totally sappy and silly like this.
See below for the videos we sent each other.
I Love You Daddy from Melissa Price-Mitchell on Vimeo.
I love you Mummy from Melissa Price-Mitchell on Vimeo.
I started writing a long comment on Karen’s post about her Cabbage Patch Kid when I realized we’d both be better off if I wrote a post and linked to that in her comments instead.
Like many kids growing up in the mid-eighties, both my sister and I had Cabbage Patch Kid dolls. We got them for Christmas the year they were so popular in Canada – 1985 I think? My mother doesn’t remember any stampedes but remembers that they were hard to find. Mine was named Sylvia Estelle and Kyla’s was named Susan Zora. I remember both of us signing the adoption papers and my mother telling my sister that she wasn’t allowed to throw hers on the floor (apparently, she was a doll thrower).
We played with them a *lot*. My mom made clothes for them. My sister cut their hair (something I only discovered recently when I couldn’t get the ponytails fixed properly). I remember going to a Cabbage Patch Kid party where all the girls brought their dolls and we all played. Someone took a picture of at least ten dolls on the couch and while their faces essentially looked the same, each one of them was unique enough that you knew exactly whose doll was whose.
Before we got the “real” Cabbage Patch Kids, we were given homemade dolls made by one of our favourite aunts. They weren’t the same as the Cabbage Patch Kids, but they were pretty close. We loved those dollies too. They were loved hard because I remember mine getting holes in her face and some of her hair was falling off. My sister also put lipstick on my doll (“to see what it would look like”) so they were definitely one of a kind. What made them extra special was that my aunt made them look like us – Betty Lou had short brown hair like me and Lily was blonde like Kyla.
Fast forward to now. These dolls are still at my mom’s house, and the Cabbage Patch Kids have both been brought out for Flora to play with when she’s at Grandma’s. (I think the homemade dolls are a little fragile for a toddler.) Fun fact: when I was pregnant, my mother had me practice my swaddling on my Cabbage Patch Kid. Later in the evening, I realized I was still cradling my swaddled “baby” and jiggling her as if she was a real baby. Big laughs all around.
Flora adores these dolls and plays with them every time she visits Grandma’s house. Interestingly, she seems to have taken a bigger shine to Kyla’s doll and not mine – I think Susan Zora got better placement in the house.
When my mom heard that the 25th anniversary dolls were released, she was excited to buy one for Flora and gave it to her for her first birthday. I think they’re running out of names in the Cabbage Patch because her dolly is named “Fairy Artie”. I had to get my sister to repeat it when she told me on the phone before we actually saw the doll. She told me “Fairy as in ‘fairy godmother’ and Artie as in ‘Artie Ziff'”. My reponse: “Oh, so little Fartie then”. Again, big laughs all around. Little Fartie sits on Flora’s toy shelf as she seemed a little large for Flora’s hands. Writing this post made me realize that I should take Little Fartie down and let Flora play with her. She was a big hit and will be entering regular rotation.
I think my mom likes these dollies as much as we do. When she saw the little preemie dolls that came out recently, she went and bought one of those for Flora as well. Ericka Alessandra is a little smaller than a regular Cabbage Patch Kid and is made completely out of plastic. Flora adores her and plays with her regularly. One of her favourite things to do with it is take off all of dolly’s clothes. Then I have to put them back on because she hasn’t gotten the hang of that part yet. (Kind of like Flora herself.) Sometimes I hear her talking to her dolly like I talk to her: “change your diaper”, “all clean”, “time to play”, “feed baby”. It shocked me just how early that kind of play starts, although it makes sense when I think about it.
I’ve always said I can’t wait for Flora to be old enough for Barbies so we could play together (I *loved* Barbies as a kid). I’ve enjoyed her Cabbage Patch Kid phase immensely though. I’m so thankful my mom had the foresight to save the Cabbage Patch Kids (and the clothes she made) so the next generation of our family could enjoy them.
We haven’t made a video in awhile, so I finally got smart enough to pick up the camera and film while Flora was in a good mood. It’s five minutes of cute baby babble and arm waving due to her mummy and daddy saying silly things and making silly faces.
Earlier today, Sean took Flora took a spontaneous trip to visit our friends Jason and Amanda and their six month-old son Thomas. They live a couple hours away so Sean and Flora are spending the night. She and I have never been separated for this long before, and never overnight. Judging from the phone calls I’ve had with Sean, it’s been harder on me than it has been on her.
During the first phone call, I could hear her babbling with Jason and Thomas while Sean told me he packed everything she needed and that everything was just fine. Once I told him that I planned to spend some of my free evening cleaning the tub, I received a verbal honey-do list of chores to do during my evening to myself. (Which interestingly enough, almost all involved poop: litter box cleaning, emptying the diaper pail and walking the dog. No one shits in our tub yet so cleaning the tub was a poop-free zone.) The second phone call was me calling to check in. I spoke to Jason as Sean was putting Flora to bed. I was worried because I do the whole bedtime routine unless I’m out of the house as I still nurse Flora right before I put her to bed for the night. Jason reported that he didn’t hear any screaming through the monitor and that she had had lots of fun all afternoon and into the evening. Jason said he saw Sean go up with a book so that meant that Sean remembered the book I read to her at bedtime. I heard him address Mr. Bunny while on the phone with me earlier so I knew she had the soft toy she sleeps with. Like he said, he had everything they needed and everything was just fine.
I just talked to Sean a few minutes ago and after some fussing, Flora finally settled and went to sleep. Considering she is sleeping in a playpen at someone else’s house and her mummy wasn’t there to help put her to bed, it doesn’t sound like she did too badly. I’m happy that she wasn’t being cranky for Sean, but sad because it felt like I was being left out of the fun. I am proud of both of them, but am looking forward to their return home tomorrow. The house is very quiet and I miss them both terribly. I do think this trip was good for all of us, and I hope Sean does it again while he’s off. It would just be nice if he did it on a weekend so I could sleep in the next morning!
Yup, it’s more pictures instead of words, but these pictures don’t need much more explanation than what their captions provide.
Flora and Leia get along well right now. We’ll see what happens when Flora figures out that she can grab Leia’s tail, follow her around, and get into her food. (Let’s hope Mummy and Daddy are on the ball to avoid some of these things at least some of the time!)
