Like Mother, Like Daughter

Posting about my awesomely rad fur coat the other day made me start reminiscing about my childhood. I was a little bit of a contradiction even back then. I was kind of tomboy but definitely loved my girly stuff.

My brother is 6 1/2 years older than I am, and of course I always wanted to be doing what he and his friends were doing, which meant that I had to be rough and tumble girl -- and I have the scars to prove it! In fact, the second time I had to have stitches after playing with my brother, my mom told him that if I had to have stitches again and it was his fault, he was going to have to get the same number in the same place whether he needed them or not. Brilliant threat = no more stitches for ME!!

BUT, I also had my box of dress up clothes. This was in the days before the Disney Princess marketing extravaganza started, so there were no princess dresses in my costume repertoire -- only castoff dresses of my mom's, some of my old tap/ballet costumes, my mother's belly dancing costume (this requires a post in and of itself -- remind me!), and a gorgeous pink, dotted Swiss dress that my mom made for me. I was ALWAYS in costume. One of my favorites was a navy blue polyester dress that had a full, pleated, circle skirt. When I twirled around in that thing, I could get full expansion of the pleats and have that thing spinning in a complete circle around me.

But oddly enough I was never really into dolls. I had some Barbies and I would play with them sporadically. When the Cabbage Patch Kids came along I HAD TO HAVE one (Angus Alfred, is in fact, featured on this page. Try not to stare, he seems to have picked up some kind of skin condition over the years.). But most of my dolls got short shrift. The family joke about me is that all of my dolls usually ended up naked, in a box, under my bed.

Except Audrey. Audrey was a favorite of mine. My family likes to joke it was because you couldn't get her completely undressed. But Audrey met with a little...um...accident.





















See, Audrey got left on top of a heater. And her hair, being the lovely auburn plastic strands that they were , melted so that it stands STRAIGHT UP on top of her head. As a child I did everything I could to get her hair to lay down. I wet it. I combed it. I cut it. I put barrettes in it only to have them fwwwwp stand straight up, still clasped firmly on her hair. I honestly can't even remember what Audrey looked like in her BEFORE state. I can only remember her after.

Anyway, she was one of the few dolls that didn't end up naked under my bed. Maybe it was because she was a challenge!

Over the past couple of days, I noticed something around our house. See if you notice anything. Take a look at this:

And this:

Notice a pattern?


And last but not least:


Nature vs. nurture? No contest. It's in her genes, baby!