Marry A Man Who Plays With Barbies
"Not you, Mommy. I want Daddy."
My breath catches in my throat, my heart skips a beat, time freezes in a shock of surprise. Was I actually stabbed in the heart or did I actually hear these words from my daughter's lips? She wants Daddy? Has something warped the space/time continuum? Has chaos finally reigned supreme over the universe? And so I stand there staring, open-mouthed, unable to comprehend that for the first time, I am not the parent of preference. I still stand there, motionless and glassy-eyed, as my husband sets down his paper, takes our daughter's hand and leads her up the stairs.
Unable to fully process this situation, I follow them.
Peering into my daughter's room, I spy on them. They have the entire Barbie City sprawled across her room. I would have urged her to contain her activities to one corner of the room for easy clean-up, but my husband has no regard for this. Towers, houses, stables, castles, a salon, a mansion are precisely aligned across the center of the room. And then they open the Chest of Barbies, where dozens of perfectly dressed and manicured dolls sleep when my daughter is not playing with them. They all come out, each and every one of them, scatter throughout the mini-Metropolis. Just when I think I've discovered the key to her preference - uncontrolled mess and mayhem - I realize something. My husband, serious faced and with full focus, is diligently positioning the Barbies within the city.
And I realize that this is anything but madness. As I stand there, spying on my family, I watch my husband call each doll by name. Not only that, but each doll apparently has a coordinating outfit, purse and shoes. Dumbfounded, I observe my husband, a man who refuses to wear pink shirts in public or order a cocktail with an umbrella for fear he might appear 'effeminate', discuss the intricacies of purse/shoe matching and hair accessories. There appears to be some conflict between Cowgirl Barbie and a Barbie dressed in a minuscule blue bikini. My daughter and my husband enthusiastically discuss how these girls should try to resolve their differences and better get along.
Somehow, during my multi-tasking of answering the phone, making dinner, planning playdates and cleaning up, I have been too distracted to know these most important details. And as I watch my husband and daughter happily arrange the Barbies in the Barbie Mobile for a trip to the beach (Cowgirl Barbie and Bikini Barbie having somehow resolved their differences), I take note to remind Brooke one day far in the future, when she is ready to choose a husband, that the best men play with Barbies.
Related Tags: children, kids, parenting, creativeideas, daughter
Amber Lipson is the owner of Footsteps Clothing, an online mother-daughter boutique at www.footstepsclothing.com and the author of many parenting and humorous articles published in electronic form and in print publications. She writes a regular parenting column called Mom-Agination at www.cleverparents.com.
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