Karen’s Place

A few years ago my niece received a doll as a gift.  This was yet one more baby doll to add to her collection.  Something was special about this one though and she was in love!  She promptly named the baby Sally and they were inseparable.                             

My niece turned 8 in November and several weeks prior I began asking her what she wanted as a gift.  She repeatedly told me she wanted a ‘twin for Sally’.  A twin for Sally?  Oh boy.  I’ll admit, I’m a bad Aunt, I couldn’t say I’d paid enough attention to Sally to be able to purchase her a twin.  Uh Oh.  So I let it the idea go for a little while until I couldn’t think of anything else to get her and I was wondering aimlessly though the isles at Wal-Mart I called my brother.  He said she wanted this new Electronic Monopoly game.  I tried to put up an argument explaining that she wanted a twin for Sally, but he told me ‘A’ would be outgrowing dolls soon and besides they already had enough paraphernalia around the house.  He assured me she would love the Monopoly game.

We met on her birthday and she opened the her present and being the beautiful girl that she is, she did love her Monopoly game.  Hugs and kisses were given, smiles were shown.  All was good. 

‘A’ is either fortunate or unfortunate enough to have Christmas come only a month after her birthday.  So, a couple of weeks later I quizzed her again.  What do you want for Christmas?  I didn’t even have the question out of my mouth when she said, “A twin for Sally”…Here we go again!  Next time I saw my brother, he got the punch on the arm and the stern look that meant to be interpreted as ‘what kind of Dad are you anyway, depriving you daughter of the one thing she really wants?” He told me he and his wife had already looked everywhere and they couldn’t find that doll.  It was a lost cause.  A few days go by and I have the opportunity to visit A’s classroom.  Displayed proudly on the wall were all the kid’s letters to Santa.  The only thing she asked for was…you guessed it.  A twin.  Not a video game, not a bike, not anything outrageously expensive, just a twin for her little ol’ doll.  Well, now I had to find that silly thing.  It was too late to ebay it, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.  I made my brother take a picture of the doll so that if I had to, I would comb every store in the city to find it.

Thanks to my sister and Google, I wouldn’t need to do any of that.  My sister is an avid scrapper (that’s what the scrapbookers call themselves), she has pictures of A from every birthday and Christmas since she was born I think, and they are organized meticulously.  She was able with in a couple of minutes to put her hand on a picture of her unwrapping Sally all those years ago and she was able to see who the manufacturer was.  I Googled the manufacturer and within 10 minutes I knew that my local Target store had Sally’s twin. (Thanks sis!)

I grabbed a friend of mine and two days before Christmas we made the journey to Target.  Ugh!  We found the twin though.  However, Sally’s twin could talk, eat, sleep, and came with a bed, high chair and stroller!  Holy Cow!  I mentioned to my friend that Sally didn’t do any of these things.  She said, well you know…one twin is always smarter than the other. 

Christmas Eve came and my sister was the only one in the family who knew ‘A’ was getting what she’d been asking for.  I told my brother I couldn’t find the doll.  I guess you could say my niece was a little excited when she opened the present-

As an Aunt, many times I get the gifts completely wrong.  They end up in the land of lost toys.  It’s nice when you get it right once in a while.  Even if, like in this case, they have to completely spell it out for you.