Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The case of the Cinderella-switch


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No, you aren't looking at a picture of the Olsen twins all grown up. What you are looking at is two overpriced Cinderella dolls from that store where Disney characters happen to reside until parents can remortgage their houses in order to make their kids happy.
Now, Buttercup has never been a "things" baby. Toys? Whatever. Dolls and stuffed animals? Yeah, that is soooo five-minutes ago. But my cell phone? Yeah, that's been a winner since the first time she actually pressed the right combination of buttons to make a phone call.
So you can imagine my surprise when she latched on almost immediately to "Cindy," her new Easter-basket friend that she got from her great-aunt, my madrina. Suddenly, Cindy was her go-everywhere buddy who got her faced snmashed in repeatedly as Buttercup crawled from room to room, with a death-grip on Cindy's little neck, and her face (thankfully) already flat as she was beat into the floor with every movement.
And yet, Cindy stayed. In between getting choked and hner face smashed in, Buttercup gave her plenty of love and promoted her to second in command amongst her stash of peasant stuffed animals. It was quite an honor.
And then I went and did it. After months of safely getting Cindy back and forth from our home to the car seat to the Place We Were Going and back home again, I failed to notice just one time that Cindy had not made it from the church where my nephew was baptised to the car.
And some santimonious little brat and her holier-than-thou family took it upon themselves to offer Cindy a new home, instead of giving me the chance to redeem myself by rescueing her from the lost and found.
It was a Sunday night, or I would have driven the 40-minutes to the mall to buy a new Cindy. So I did the next best thing: I knocked on my neighbor's door and begged to borrow her 3-year-old's Cindy doll. She'd be the doll on the left. Sure, she was slightly different than ours had been, but Buttercup saw the familiar face and that oh-so-grabbable little neck, and all was good.
I only felt slightly less like the world's worst mother.
And the next morning, I packed up the diaper bag and left Imposter Cindy in the car while Buttercup and I trekked into the local mall with the single-mided intention of spending major loot on not one, not two, but THREE Cindy's. At 16 bucks a pop, I figured I might as well go for broke and throw in a Belle doll, too.
So the Cindy on the right would be, let me see now....
Oh yes,. that's Cindy #2. Cindy #1 is currently in the washer after an unfortunate incident with some yogurt, and Cindy #3 is in the mini-van, already awaiting her next adventure.
So there you have it. I pulled a Cindy-switch...
Am I evil?

5 comments:

Michelle said...

Ya gotta do - what ya gotta do
It makes complete sense to me, anything to keep 'em happy.
We have a blue bear called "B" and if we forget "B" somewhere and it's bedtime, it's guaranteed that my husband is going for a road trip !!

Desiree said...

Not evil at all -- a good friend of mine's daughter had an obsession with this tiny little brown stuff puppy, whom she called Toby. Once Toby #1 was ko'd the only place she could find a replacement was the hospital gift shop, and eventually my friend bought out the stock.
At some point her daughter realized that there were more than one Toby, so then there as Gramma Toby, Daddy Toby, Sister Toby etc. etc.
It all worked out :) I think my friend's daughter was just excited that there were so many Tobys! This was years ago and I think there is still one or two kicking around!

ps. this is my first time here! Hello :)

Pauline said...

Desiree,thanks for stopping by. I like the fact that Toby got a "family" out of the deal. Not sure if the Cinderella obsession will last--which I find interesting since Buttercup does not even know who she is at this point--but while it's going I plan to keep the Cindy's washed rotated.
Here's crossing myh fingers that this is the only doll I have to buy in triplicate.

Rhea said...

Not evil, SMART! lol Good for you!

Sarah Jewel said...

I don't know WHAT I'll do when Seamus loses his ducky (it's from carters - came w/ a super soft ducky baby blakie). I haven't seen one in the store for SOME time now. :/