Chapter 2: The Dollhouse
My favorite toy growing up was my dollhouse. I remember in perfect detail the small dollhouse being a small pink sort of house with two levels, two balconies, two doors, and four rooms. None of the rooms were the same size. Nor did they have the same material of flooring, but I loved that modern dollhouse with all of my heart.
My mother once told me that I would always have a smile upon face as my small hands took initiative to place the plastic miniature furniture sets into their original places. She also stated that my excitement of receiving the dollhouse as a birthday gift from my Aunt Annie has impacted a good part of my life. In fact, my mother recalls the pleading look I gave my father when I asked him to open the dollhouse right away. A small smile would always appear upon my face from hearing her tale as my mother would continue to go through my childhood memories. My ears can still hear her chuckle as she clearly states through the phone that I got so mad when my father said no. But in the end, I was thrilled about receiving my dollhouse.
Now I don't remember much of that year. But I do remember the many endless memories I had in the attic room playing with my dollhouse.
In between the four years of having the dollhouse, my family and friends had bought me. The first doll I received was when I was four years old. It was given to me by parents on Christmas Eve. It was a skinny housewife from the fifties and she was the picture perfect wife. I remember her wearing a one piece evening dress with a pencil skirt tight style bottom. To go with the dress, her small feet had a pair of black high heel shoes meanwhile a small red colored slanted-crown hat was placed upon her head. The dress was a light pink color and hand long sleeves. I remember my brown eyes glistened with happiness as my eyes took in the reddish-brown hair and the small smile my doll had.
I received my second doll at the age of six. It was given to me by my future best friend's mother Mrs. Moon. It was a business man from her old collection of toys. The blonde woman stated towards me that she knew how much I loved my dollhouse and that she has decided to give me the doll as a thank you gift for being her son Austin Moon's friend. She also said that I needed a male doll as he belongs somewhere special like my dollhouse. I still remember the big shy smile I gave her as she told me the tale about the doll. In the meantime of her tale, my eyes wandered down towards the businessman. The man's tan white skin body is wearing a tailored black suit and I remember him wearing a set of black dressy shoes. Once Mrs. Moon had finished her story, I gave her a thank you hug before taking another good look at the businessman's face and noticed a set of clear glasses.
The final doll I received was this year. The doll was given to me by my best friend since diapers, Patricia De La Rosa. It was a teenage boy and he looked a bit too old fashion for me to recognize. I can recall the confused facial expression upon my face as I asked my mother why the doll was wearing a piece of string across the upper part of his body. My mother let out a chuckle from my reaction before hearing her explained to me that the boy is wearing suspenders on top of his white long sleeve shirt. A full on bewilderment look took over my face expression meanwhile my ears strained to hear that before belts there were suspenders and the object was used to help people with supporting their pants. Once the explanation made sense to me, I called Trish's house phone and thanked her mother for the gift. Mrs. De La Rosa was pleased with my call and wished me once more a Happy Birthday.
It has been a few months since I got the teenaged male doll and I have finally decided on where I would place each doll after playtime.
The housewife was placed by the double sink in the Kitchen area of the first level. I placed the woman there because she reminded me so much of my mother. If there is one thing that always stayed in the back of my mind, it is how my mother would spend her days in our old home. There was one location where she would end her days and I would recall the daydream expressions she had hold on to during her stay there. It was near the kitchen sink. I remember seeing my mother's thin hands preoccupied with washing the daily usage of her dishes as she tried to make everything seem fine. To keep up with the illusion that it was and her marriage with my father wasn't falling apart.
The housewife wasn't the only doll in the kitchen. The businessman is in seated behind the housewife and is on top of the four chairs in front of the squared size table. His arms were facing up on top of the decorated table setup as both of his hands hold onto a small miniature newspaper. I placed him in that position because my brown eyes could recall the times where my father would look over the news before going to bed.
I know it sounds like a ridiculous scenario. The reason why I state this is because my father doesn't own a business suit. Nor does he work at some huge successful business place. Instead my father is a middle class man who worked most of his life in a music store that he owns at the nearest mall. Still that's where the man seemed to fit, and that is where he would stay. In my eyes the businessman would always represent my father. The whole situation is still hard to explain but I guess it was my way to cope with the imperfectness inside my family.
Anyways back to my story...
The teenage boy was a bit hard to place because I was an only child growing up. Plus I didn't really play with the plastic doll boy unless Austin would come over. And so overtime I decided to place him in the second floor in the plain blue bedroom that is located on the right side of the dollhouse.
Now there is only one room that wasn't touched within those five years. It was a small room located next to the blue room. This room was a pink bedroom with floral wallpaper, which covered three- fourths of the visible walls inside the room. I recall there being only a wooden dresser and a twin wooden bedframe inside the room. Both miniature furniture sets were painted in white and the whole floor was covered by a piece of cream color carpet. The room was located on the second floor and was sort of connected to the large blue room.
My mother once told me that this room was a girl's bedroom and she has promised me that we would one day go downtown and buy a small barbie. Sadly my mother was a busy writer and wasn't able to spare some time out of the house. And so when I received the unexpected Melanie doll, I was thrilled to finally be able to play in that room.
My brown eyes can still remember the way The Melanie Doll looked. The doll was wearing a cute little blue jumper, her accessories were those found in any doll box but she had this weird necklace upon her neck that seemed to catch my attention. I don't remember much of the necklace except that it had two plastic small arms and each hand was holding onto a pair of small blue eyes. In my mind the doll looked creepy. And I recall Trish telling me once over our playtime that the Melanie Doll looked sort of dark and depressing. My seven year old mind agreed with Trish's statement because there were some odd features The Melanie Doll had that made her unique from any of the other dolls I have ever seen in my lifetime. And one good example would be her hair.
When I received The Melanie Doll, she had crisscrossed braids. They looked like any regular braids but those thin pieces of hair strings were caging in two sets of high ponytails. The left side of her hair was a normal dark brown color meanwhile the other side of her hair was a cotton pink color. The one thing I recall is the weirded out expression I had upon my face as my eyes noticed the dreadful expression upon her tan skin tone face. Her hot pink colored lips were slightly open in frowning expression and her eyes looked straight ahead and hollow, unfulfilled, really just bored.
I remember having a huge smile upon my face as I came upon a small version of pink hairspray and a big bow inside the Melanie Doll's box. In that decade bows were considered in and I loved the idea of wearing bows upon a person's hair. So by the end of the week, I placed the big pink bow on top of her ruthless curly hair before settling her down for the night.
Over the first two weeks of having my new doll it was great. I was able to get rid of the strange necklace and change the doll into a cuter light pink doll dress. The only thing that took a long time to change was her hairstyle. It took about three days before I was able to remove all of the braids from her hair. And after getting rid of the two ponytails from her original hairstyle, I started to see similarities between the Melanie doll and I.
Both Melanie and I appeared to be miserable. Throughout the days of playing with her, I became more shocked to see how she reflected my very own feelings. It was like her facial expressions showed a far off expression upon her brown eyes as a small frown covered her thin lips. Melanie's expressions weren't always like this. There were times though rare that whenever I was happy she was able to portray those feelings by holding a small smile upon her white skin tone face.
It was kind of hard to explain the strange situation and so when I told both of my friends about it, neither of them believed me. Trish laughed at my so called story before stating towards me that I was imagining it all. Austin told me that I was watching too much TV. After talking to them, I decided to keep those experiences I had inside my dollhouse towards myself.