What were your two favorite childhood toys?

Hands down – Barbies and Strawberry Shortcake.

I loved Strawberry Shortcake. I even had a canopy bed with Strawberry Shortcake bedding on it! And yes, it smelled like strawberries. I loved her so much that one year my Mom threw her a birthday party – complete with my friends and a strawberry shaped cake! She was fantastic. I always did love dolls and babies. My Grandma, Mom, and one of my Aunt’s made my babies clothes, which of course adds to how awesome the dolls were. I still have the babies and clothes, though sadly I don’t have Strawberry Shortcake. The new version of her looks okay but look at that picture! That is vintage Strawberry! I might have to buy that for myself, just to have.

And Barbie. How can you not love Barbie! I don’t fall into the whole she’s a bad role model for girls and she doesn’t look like a real person. She’s a doll. Of course she doesn’t look like a real person! If you parent your children, then they won’t think that dolls should be their role models. They will think dolls are dolls. My Mom parented me and thus, barbies were barbies. They were fun to play with and dress up. Even if my brothers did steal Barbie so she could marry a GI Joe. Ken was never good enough I suppose. I didn’t have everything Barbie offered, I can’t even remember if I had the car, which I suppose means maybe I didn’t. I did have a Barbie trunk with clothes in it.

I still have a lot of my Barbies and my daughter plays with them once in a while. I even have a Michael Jackson doll, complete with the red and black jacket and one sparkly glove.