Playing Paper Dolls

Sitting on the floor of her room, we delve into a bin, into the pile of paper dolls that somehow survived from my girlhood. The dolls are waiting in plastic sleeves, smiling like old friends, their names coming right back to me. As I see them again, I remember each outfit, every single one and there are hundreds. I see some of the names crossed out where they’d been printed at the dolls’ feet. I suddenly remember not liking some of the given names and re-writing new ones. Since she can’t read yet, I tell my daughter what I had done, laughing at my silliness. Stella asks seriously, “What was this one’s name?”

“It was Becky,” I say. “Then I changed it to Lisa.”

“Uck,” she says, making a face. “I don’t like the name Becky.” Four years old and she knows exactly what she likes and doesn’t like. The other day she told me she does not like my hair in a ponytail, that it looks “nasty.” Not very nice, but honest.

I remember playing with these dolls, in that perfect time before boys really existed. I put so many hopes and dreams on these little paper figures, gave them intricate stories. Just holding them in my hand makes me yearn to go back to the days that I lived in a small brown house with my parents – those days that I still had my mom and the summer afternoons were long and hot and deliciously boring.

Stella gets frustrated that some of the clothes are so old that their tabs are broken off and they don’t stay on the dolls properly anymore. She hands them to me as if I can work some magic and I fiddle with them enough to get the outfit to stay on. Then I lean the dolls up against the wall, since they can’t stand by themselves.

There are so many things I want to tell my little girl. There are so many ways I want her stay little for as long as possible. I think of her even next year, five years old and in kindergarten, and my body aches with loss. I want to stop time.

I think of those dolls being put away in a closet, left untouched for so many years. I think of myself losing interest in them and wanting to be grown up. I remember all the ways I wasn’t true to myself, putting my boyfriend first, not believing in myself enough, not taking the time to figure out what I truly wanted to do and how I was going to get there.

But then…but then. There is Stella, perfect dumpling of a little girl -- her round blue eyes, blond hair with bangs, her tiny fleece outfit that she wants to wear every day of winter. There is the blue nail polish she picked out, the ever-changing row of necklaces on her neck, a mermaid tattoo she put on her forearm herself. There is no self-doubt, no worrying, no holding back. She knows exactly who she is and what she wants. All the time. How, how, to preserve this?

When the time is right, I will be honest with her. I will tell her how I didn't always make the right choices. But I will also tell her that I am grateful for where my life led me, because it brought me right to my four children. I will tell her that being a mother is the biggest gift in the world and that I can still be moved to tears when I see my children sleeping, even if my oldest is eleven.

But that doesn't matter right now. I open another sleeve and take out a doll whose clothes stick on with magnets.

“Here,” I say. “This one is perfect for you. The clothes just go right on, no tabs. Her name is Magnetic Mary-Ann.”

“I like her. But I don’t like that name,” Stella says, making a face.

“Go ahead and change it,” I tell her. Then we just play, the paper dolls remembering yesterday but not saying a word.