Barbie Girl

We spent this weekend with some friends of ours up near Seattle, WA. Jamie was my first Visiting Teacher when we moved here to Washington and we became good friends. (She was also the only friend I had in town who's house had A/C. But that had nothing to do with it, I swear) She has two daughters and a son who are all older than my kids, but they all play together just fine. And one of them is old enough to "babysit" so we had lots of kid-free adult chat time while we were there, which was awesome.

But Raia didn't mind being "babysat". She loved having other girls to play with. Even though Jamie's daughters are both at least twice Raia's age, Barbies seem to span generations, so they had some common ground. Raia only has one Barbie at home that she plays with, and only off and on, but the Barbies (and their owners) seemed to be all she wanted to play with this weekend. Thankfully there was an electric train set to keep Errol occupied.

Watching her playing with kids her own gender made me feel a little sad that Raia doesn't have a sister. While she was playing with the girls in their room, Errol tried to walk in, and Raia shouted "Shoo! Shoo the boys!" She was totally enjoying her "girl time" and didn't want any boys interrupting it. I feel so grateful that she and Errol get along so well and hardly ever fight, but it made me realize some of the things that their relationship can't provide for her. Errol enjoys dolls on occasion, but they don't have the kinds of conversations Raia's dolls do. Infact, his dolls seem more content wracking up their frequent flyer miles than they do discussing who's going to go to rescue WishBear who just fell off the bed. He tends to bring Raia into his games (riding the hobby horse, chasing eachother with the giant ball in the backyard, etc.) rather than she bringing him into hers.

I'm going to try and find Raia some "girlfriends". She has friends at church, but she hasn't really interacted with them much outside that setting. And out of all the things Barbie can do (and she can do EVERYTHING!) she hasn't yet managed to make it to Sunday School.