I watched a trailer for the new Barbie movie the other day that has me reminiscing about my childhood. My sister and I loved playing with Barbies. I meant to pluralize that. We had LOTS of them.

I have always been a doll girl. My sister was, too, but she says she liked whatever I liked (till she was about 12). Anyway, we had tall walking dolls, small baby dolls and cloth dolls, but our favorite was Barbie. My first Barbie came with unbendable legs, heavy makeup and a bald head. Of course, she  came with a few wigs and fashionable outfits. My favorite was a tweed look black and white suit.

Over the years we accumulated a good number of Barbies and Barbie sized dolls to add to their family. Original Barbie was joined by Ken, Skipper and other Barbies. We were also able to add a Black family with Christie, Brad and twin Francie dolls. My sister added a Honey West (remember her?) doll and I added Mary Poppins and her charges, Jane and Michael.

If my mom couldn’t put us in day camp during the summer we were at home all day. The rules were stay in the house, don’t open the door. When she did let us go out we had to stay on the porch. We followed those rules to a tee. Just an excuse to play with Barbie. I was always that child my mother had to push out of the door to play outside anyway.

I remember one summer playing Barbie every day, all day till our mom got home from work. We’d wake up in the morning, make our beds and begin to setup our houses. I’m sure at some point breakfast or lunch was involved, but play was the thing.

The beds had to be made up because those were our houses. We used items we found around our house to furnish. A small box or pillow may be a sofa or chair. Books could be tables. We made lamps from empty air freshener containers that were shaped like cylinders. A car could be made from a shoebox. The possibilities were endless. 

I read an article about one of the dolls in the movie. The author called her “Marker Face Barbie”. She represents the Barbie whose hair we cut and makeup we drew on their faces with markers. We also had a few of those. We’d polish their nails with markers and make earrings out of colored pins from our mom’s sewing box. There are only so many times you can stick a pin into a Barbie dolls ears. I’m just saying.

Our times with Barbie and her extended family and friends were so much fun. What was your favorite toy when you were young?