Ever since becoming a mom, I’ve had a beef with Barbie. It’s not that I didn’t like the doll during my own childhood. When I was young, I owned a single Barbie, my friend down the street had Ken, and her next-door neighbor had Skipper. At playtime, we combined resources and were good to go. These days, any self-respecting little girl owns Barbie, Ken, and Skipper, in addition to 12 billion Kelly dolls and vacuum-jamming, potential baby-choking shoes for everyone.
While I've never been fond of the sheer volume that surrounds this fashion doll, I did like the potential Barbie brought to imaginative play sessions. That is until recently, when I spent 20 minutes of my life dressing the darn thing.
What is up with Barbie’s fingers? Why have they been formed in such a splayed-out manner? If I may borrow a phrase from my junior-high dance instructor: Barbie’s got jazz hands.
There are many activities for preschoolers, games for preschoolers and family home activities. But my daughter loves Barbies.
The other day, while my daughter concocted an elaborate scenario involving a wedding and the subsequent birth of twins, I hunched over her cast of characters trying to coax their arms through barely wide enough sleeves. Barbie’s plastic digits are not exactly pliable, which makes maneuvering them into their dainty dresses difficult at best. Adding to my frustration is the fact that Barbie’s wardrobe stylist’s motto seems to be “The lacier the better.” So not only do you have to angle the spread-out fingers through just so, you have to unsnag them from the frilly fabric every millimeter or so. And I’m 38. If it’s challenging for me, it’s pretty much impossible for my kid.
Would it have been so difficult to make Barbie’s fingers all pressed together? Would it have affected her lifelike appearance — any more than her only-in-make-believe measurements?
Ah, but my daughter adores Barbie, so I’ll grin and bear it. Come to think of it, there are several of my kids’ toys that fall into the love-to-hate-them category.
Toddler Activities and Toys
Lego Duplos, for example, drive me batty, because each 70-piece tub includes only two of the cool eyeball blocks and one helicopter rotor, guaranteeing a custody battle if both kids are building. Also, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched my 5-year-old craft an impressive skyscraper, only to have it crash as he tried to snap the last Lego in place. It’s one of those “sometimes bad things happen to good people” lessons I’d rather not have to teach a kindergartner on an otherwise pleasant Saturday afternoon.
Much of our Lego construction takes place on top of the Thomas train table, which presents another source of Mommy Migraine. There we are, cheerfully assembling a wooden track that winds through the peaceful Island of Sodor, when we get to the last section and realize we lack the proper connector. Sometimes my junior conductor will allow me to abruptly end the circuit with a buffer. Other times the project will culminate in tears and rants of “It’s not fair!” You would think that at the prices they charge, the folks at Learning Curve could have figured out a foolproof connection system. Instead, they gloss over the issue in their Thomas Wooden Railway Builder’s Guide by chirping, “Creating layouts promotes problem-solving and simple math skills such as addition and subtraction.” Indeed.
Polly Pocket: Another Frustrating Toddler Activity
If I could subtract anything from our universe, it would be Polly Pocket and her millions of miniscule accessories. Does Mattel seriously expect a little girl to pull those teeny-tiny rubber clothes onto those teeny-tiny dolls when she can barely tie her own shoes? And speaking of shoes, how many pairs of Polly’s half-inch-long heels actually match five minutes after leaving the packaging?
While I’m in the confessional, let me admit that magic markers terrify me; I have irrational Play-Doh issues; and the Easy-Bake Oven that my daughter found under last year’s Christmas tree remains packaged up in its box because I am completely intimidated by the powdered food envelopes and the thousand-page instruction booklet crammed with capitalized and underlined warnings.
I’ll trade toys that come with 100-piece accessory sets for a good old-fashioned rubber ball any day of the week. I recently watched my kids spend the better part of an afternoon sharing one ball between the two of them. They started with basic catch that, through excited collaboration, evolved into a complicated game governed by more than a dozen mandates along the lines of, “Throw the ball with your left hand, spin around, catch it with your right hand, then hop three times!” If one of them forgot the sequence, there was no arguing over the instruction manual. They just changed the rules and started over, giggling all the while. In short, they had a ball.
Kavanagh is a contributing editor at EduGuide.