Una and the American Doll

Let me introduce Haley's prized possession...Una, a lovely purple unicorn. She takes this thing with her everywhere!! Una has been her show-and-tell item at school for the last several weeks. When we are out running errands she introduces Una to EVERYONE! "Hi! This is my unicorn Una...she likes to be called Una...she's a purple unicorn named Una!". Luckily, everyone that she introduces Una to has been very pleasant and humors her. One day some cranky person is going to shout back at her, "Get that mangy thing out of my face!". (Haley does have a tendency to hold it close to people when talking to them.) And if you knew where this horse has been you wouldn't want it very close to you. It's been in the mucky river water, Etta's water bucket (that's how Haley gives her a bath), the mud, in the gutter, dragged behind her tricycle, it's been Etta's play toy (that's was on accident), it's gone with us on several road trips, and most likely drooled on when Haley sleeps with her. Yes, I've washed it several times. In fact, Una used to have long flowy hair, but it shriveled to nothing once it went through the dryer. Oops! Haley was pretty upset, but she has since forgotten all about it. The funny part about this whole thing is that it was given to us by the hostess at the Red Robin about 1 1/2 ago. It was sitting by the hostess table, and Haley noticed it immediately as soon as we walked in. So the hostess ended up letting Haley have it...they have been inseparable ever since!

It seems that the toys that parents go crazy about and can't wait to give to their children, or spend loads of money for, are the toys that are kicked aside and nearly forgotten about. But the cheap toys (or free in this case) are the toys they can't live without! This leads me to the next photo.




Yesterday, we got the American Girl doll catalog!! Yes, very exciting...as I had one as a child, still have her for that matter, packed away safe in my closet. (Mine is the Samantha doll, in case anyone was wondering.) Haley and Morgan went crazy for this catalog, looking at every page in detail! And of course my immediate thought was "I can't wait to get this for them!!". Just to let you know, the average price for a doll is around $100, and that's not including all the accessories you can get!! But, I have to tell myself to slow down (I'm kind of excited since Christmas is right around the corner). Because I know that if I bought this doll for Christmas morning, it would entertain them for about 5 minutes, and then they would toss it aside and play with the wind-up toy that cost about a dollar they got in their stocking. And of course that would make me go crazy, "Girls, play with these dolls! Look at how nice these dolls are, why don't you want to play with them?!!". We've all been there! So I'll be patient, and wait to buy a doll like this until they are old enough to appreciate it...even though I'm dying to buy one!!