Girls & Dolls

We have a couple of girly girls on our hands.

Miss Lexi loves twirly skirts and dresses, tights, headbands, boots, nail polish, necklaces, princesses, ponies, fairies, and anything that is sparkly or the color pink.  She loves her gold glitter shoes and wants to wear them at all times, regardless of terrain or temperature.  She thinks she talked me into buying her some pink cowboy boots, but really I let them be her idea so that her little tootsies would be warm all winter.  She wears them every day.

Lexi also adores her dolls.  She rocks them and feeds them and changes them and puts them to sleep.  She takes them on walks and pushes them in the swing.  She reads books and sings songs to her little friends and plays "house" with Gavin.  Lexi is always the "pretend mom," and Gavin is always the "pretend dad."  It's hilarious to listen to them play together.  The babies are always in time-out for making messes or inappropriate noises at the dinner table.  Apparently they are just acting out real life.

Brooke, Lexi's larger (18") doll, has amazing hair.  Until recently it was pulled up into pretty braids and pony tails, but Lexi decided the fresh-from-the-factory look wasn't interesting enough, so she unleashed Brooke's bushy hair.  It quickly became a matted mess.

I poked around online and found a tutorial for taming unruly doll hair.  And guess what?  It worked on Brooke, too.  She's all stylish now.  I braided part of her hair so it doesn't get out of control again.  [Sidebar: I'm pretty sure Brooke has more hair on her head than I do.]

Kate has begun to mimic Lexi's motherly ways.  Kate likes to have a doll in the crook of her arm or in her lap.  On our almost-daily walks around the block, she brings along a friend of some kind.  Kate will hug and kiss her babies and push them in the stroller or grocery cart.  Her fingers are not yet nimble enough to fasten buckles or change clothes for her dolls, and she gets frustrated.  But watching her tuck a baby in bed and pretend to make dinner in the little kitchen makes me smile.

Kate is obsessed with shoes.  Her pink boots (scuffed-up hand-me-downs from Lexi) are her very favorite.  She also likes it when I fix her hair.  She is MUCH more tolerant than Lexi is.  Today she has two rows of pigtails (six total) and I got them all secured in five minutes.  Go Kate!  She has learned to give kisses in her own special way: kissing her bunched fingers and then touching her fingers to a person's cheek. She also has a charming wave and "hi" for everyone she meets.

I'm not very girly myself, but I sure love seeing my daughters embrace their feminine DNA.