Barbie I Still Love You!

As I was shopping at Target for a 5 year old girl’s birthday present, I found myself somewhat lost. Come to think of it, I never really put much thought into buying girl toys until we finally had a baby girl. So this turned out to be quite the adventure. As expected, the whole Barbie by Mattel aisle was hard to miss and so I was automatically drawn to the doll section. I said to myself, "this should be easy", I mean really, how hard can it get? I thought that I would just grab any Barbie and get out. But holy cow! I didn’t realize that there were so many different ones! All of the sudden I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I was getting frustrated and almost about to walk away. And then, I found this! It is called “My House” Barbie. It has 50 pieces of home accessories and furniture you can actually move the house and furniture around to however you want. I saw stars twinkling around the box melodiously calling out my name like how it was called when I was 6 or 7 years old.

My heart melted and brought me back (way back) when I played with my own Barbie Dolls! Shucks…I forgot how much I really loved them. I still remember --- I have 11 Barbie dolls that I played with daily. My little sister and I carried all 11 dolls in a plastic shoe bin and we dressed and redressed them every single day. Everywhere we were, our imaginations were endless. We piled little blocks for Barbie's bed, and always attempted to make a home for Barbie out of boxes. A flood of memories kept pouring in. Really happy memories.

I even actually own that controversial Growing-Up Skipper (picture on the right)! For those of you that didn’t grow up in the 70s, Skipperhappens to be Barbie’s younger sister. Oh wait, maybe Skipper is still around? No? Anyway, the Growing-Up Skipper was a riot. You basically wind the arms backward and the torso gets longer and thinner, and the breast gets bigger too! I guess that it was such a hit that they followed up with Growing-Up Ginger (which I wish I had). Ginger is Skipper’s friend. Oh and who remember Malibu Barbie? The sun-goddess doll that has a tan line if you pull down the straps of her bra!

After that Target trip, I found myself searching online to see if I can still buy these old toys so I can share with my daughter (how’s that for a reason). I am excited to also find the vintage Barbie books from the 60s that I used to love. You gotta love ebay! But the funniest of part of all is that I am now in the lookout to buy another toy I used to play with. This Fonzie doll below complete with the faux leather jacket and motorcycle.


You see in my Barbie household, Mr. Fonzarella was the main squeeze. Infact, there were many timesI was questioned why were Barbie and The Fonz laying around the house without their clothes on. Well, why else? That leather bomber jacket will look hot on Barbie don’t ya think? (*wink) And as the The Fonz cooly say...."eeeeey"

Care to share your favorite childhood toys?

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Crossposted at ChicagoMomsBlog.com