The Baby-Doll Make Over
Blog | Family | Growing Pains
All my musing on borrowed treasure resurrected a long-forgotten memory today. When Maggie placed her well-loved Bitty Baby in my arms, I noticed a green marker splat on the doll’s plastic face. After a quick scrub with some dish soap and water, the emerald bruise disappeared. But it reminded me of a day from my childhood when one of my own dollies was returned with a new look.
One time when I was six years old, my cousin and I decided to switch baby dolls for the week. She would take care of my yellow-clad-red-headed Katie and I would babysit her purple-clad-blond-haired Lucy. We pinkie promised to love them well and agreed to return our dolls to their rightful owners at our Grandma’s house the following week. I spent the week carrying Lucy carefully and sleeping with her under my arm at night. My cousin spent the week giving Katie a make-over.
When we met up at Grandma’s house seven days later, I gently handed Lucy to her rightful “mommy.” Then my cousin dug Katie out of her backpack and announced that she had taken the liberty to make my doll “prettier.” Proudly, my younger cousin presented me with a rosy-cheeked, chopped-haired baby doll. Katie’s creamy white cheeks were streaked with blazing red lipstick. She looked like a circus clown waiting for its costume. To make matters worse, her long red locks were chopped into a jagged ear-length bob. A gaudy green bow was GLUED in what remained of her hair and her soft yellow sleeper was covered with magic marker polka-dots.
I took one look at my treasured doll and began to cry.
“I like short hair better,” my cousin said as she tried to make sense of my tears. “Don’t you?”
“No!” I replied. “I liked Katie just how she was.”
“But she was kind of boring…” my cousin countered.
“She was perfect,”I declared through sobs.
I stomped out of the room in anger and sorrow and refused to talk to my favorite family play mate for the rest of the day. Thankfully, Grandma’s gentle guidance and her timely picnic of oatmeal cookies helped us to make amends. But that silly girlhood memory has gotten me thinking about the way I care for God’s sweet babies. I wonder if my attempts to change the children He’s given me in ways that suit my own preferences have ever made Him feel the same as I did on that long-ago day when my cousin returned my modified baby doll? Sad. Mad. And a bit confused. Today, I’m going to attempt to celebrate my “borrowed children” just as they are, made in His image.
I hope you’ll join me tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week as I share a parable that invites us all to consider how we treat the Master’s workmanship right beneath our roofs.
The Overflow:
Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. -Psalm 127:3
The Overflow:
Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. -Psalm 127:3
No, from then on, when we played house, she was the “big sister” and I was the “Mommy.” 🙂 That way I could take charge of ALL the dollies!
Oh my, I bet you never traded dollies again with your cousin 🙂
~Robin