BlueAngel

A Dig Through the Toy Box

Being the eBay addict that I am, I decided to rummage
through some old things in our storage room to find
something to sell. My search took me to a box full of
dolls and toys from my childhood.

On the very bottom lay my favorite childhood doll- a Gerber
baby which is as old as I am. As I picked it up, the feel
of it was overwhelmingly familiar, even though I hadn't set
eyes upon it for years. There is no way to explain how
happy I am that I found it and how comforting it is to hold
it... even now that I am 19 years old.

He is extremely tattered. One side is stitched up tightly
where an arm is missing. The other arm is starting to fall
off. There is stuffing falling out around one leg, which
is also likely to fall off any day now. The eyes which
used to move when you turned the doll over now move about
clumsily. He is covered in filmy dirt and sticky adhesive
from times I used to try to tape his limbs back on
securely. There are traces of stitching done by Grandma's
expert hand which have now fallen out.

It is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I spent many hours rocking him and having tea parties with
him. I threw him in the air (acrobatics!) and took him in
the yard with me to make mud pies. Despite teasing from my
family after it began to deteriorate, I took the doll on
every trip to Grandma's house. It was my subject of every
single Show & Tell. I slept with it every night until I
knew his poor little cloth body couldn't hold together if I
handled him much more. (This occurred much later in my
childhood than I'd like to admit.)

Gerber Baby dolls which are in good condition are selling
on eBay for some pretty good money. Some might say it's
sad that I treated mine so badly, because he could be worth
a lot of money. But I think this doll had the best
treatment any doll could have. And to me, he's priceless.