The power of cute!

[mayhap]

Oh my God, people!

You know those American Girls books, and they were cute and stuff and so you read them when you were, like, nine. and you sent away for the catalogue and spent hours poring over over Samantha's petit fours and Kirsten's Saint Lucia dress and and Felicity's pet lamb and you made up five hundred thousand wishlists and no one ever bought you so much as a hairbrush? I never even had a Barbie doll and I never even wanted a Barbie doll, because I had Legos, but by God I wanted all those little dresses and desks and books and dolls (because dolls have to have dolls!) and everything.

I dragged satyadasa to the American Girl Place in Manhattan when it opened and he was either strangely fascinated by the plethora of miniaturized paraphernalia (which exponentially increased with the creation of the modern American Girls to go with the historical ones, since they can do everything ever, like tapdance and climb mountains) or doing a really good job of humoring me. More recently, I got to help set up the American Girl doll display we have at our library, which is very popular with pretty much everybody, especially now that we have Kaya, who has five times as much loot as all the other dolls with her tipi and her horse and her wolf and and her fur rugs and her her campfire on top of her dresses and doll and food and the other usual stuff. Naturally, I reminded my mother of the angst and woe and deprivation I suffered during my childhood. Because, you know. That is what you do.

So this morning she comes home with
. Who are just so gosh-darned cute that I am powerless to resist brushing their hair and and hugging them and squeezing them and calling them George. (Notice approximately one-third of my BSC collection in the background there, to complete the whole actually-I-am-eight effect.)

Somebody send help! Airdrop tennis players if you have to!

EDIT:

Comments

[coercedbynutmeg.livejournal.com]

Dang, those catalogues. I never spent as much time lusting over the contents of a catalogue like I did with those American Girl ones. I wanted Samantha's watercress sandwich and Addy's ice cream maker and whatever else (course, there were only 5 girls back then). Yesterday, at the school library, they had a huge section of American Girl books but the librarian told me they haven't beem popular for about 4 or 5 years. What a shame.

[kivrin.livejournal.com]

Dude! Oh, I remember the lust... and I am such an elderly creature that when I was lusting there were but THREE - Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly. Samantha was the object of my attention. OMGschooldesk! OMGhairribbons! OMGberibboned nightgown!

[satyadasa.livejournal.com]

American Girl Place is to a miniature museum as Barnes and Noble is to a library. Intricate little themed things for sale. Fascinating :)

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

The contemporary dolls never really did it for me. AG introduced them just as I was growing out of my doll-love -- I got Addy and Samantha around ages 10 and 12 -- and I remember being seriously uninterested in the moderns. I think part of the charm of the dolls, for me, was the strange, ornate perfection of their clothes and accessories. How old-fashioned and beautiful everything was, so different from MY stuff!

I still have Sam and Addy. My little sisters are almost old enough to get them, I think. They're 5 and 3 -- few more years, you think?

[belmanoir.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, yes. I remember I convinced my sister to ask for one on the theory that my parents would be more likely to give her one than me (in retrospect, I'm not sure why I thought this, probably because I was a suspicious, distrustful child, and also because she asked for stuff a lot less frequently than me). They said no, it was too expensive and we had lots of dolls (true). I think we had a bunch of the books, though, but maybe we read them from the library. I can't even remember which one was my favorite, I liked them all. Out of curiosity, did they ever introduce a Jewish girl?

But I always, always, even in the height of my desperate desire, thought the story on the back of the catalogue was the most melodramatic cheesy thing I'd ever seen.

[basking-lizard.livejournal.com]

The dolls are cute, but ZOMG entire shelf of Ngaio marsh books!! :D I am rather desperately waiting for the library here to come up with the next ocuple of DVD's in the set, as I've seen the first two and can't find the second two anywhere. :P

Anyway. yay Ngaio Marsh! :)

[baroquestar.livejournal.com]

Bugger the dolls; you have Ngaios I don't have! *clutches at screen longingly*