Throw Back Thursday; Creepy Doll Edition

In all fairness, it should probably be called creepy pre-adolesecnt edition. It's not the poor dolls fault.

I was one of those kids that played with dolls long past the appropriate doll playing ages. Tell me you know what I'm talking about here - you wouldn't ever tell your friends at school you still played with dolls but when you were home alone you snuck them out of the closet. You get it, right? Right?

Apparently, I was also the kind of kid that had professional studio pictures made with them. 

I came across these gems the other day and was equally appalled and nostalgic. This is me posing with my doll at an Olan Mills portrait session. Notice the doll's hand-smocked dress:

I'll have you know that our dolls did not go out in public wearing mass-produced generic doll clothes. Nosireebob. My sister's and my dolls had custom clothing and every year my mother made them Easter dresses to match ours. We also all had matching smocked night gowns. 

Now that I think about it, we were our own American Girl Company long before the American Girl Company even existed. We were groundbreaking.

This next picture is the nail in my preadolescent coffin. As you can see I am older. Much older. The doll is no longer a baby and we are back at Olan Mills to capture our new life stages.

I don't even want to take a guess at how old I am because we all know it's too old. However, I applaud my parents for not dressing me like a miniature adult normal kid and letting me hang on to my childhood as long as I possibly could. Or, perhaps, I just applaud them for taking all of this in stride, because goodness knows by this time they had to be just slightly concerned.

Either way, kudos to them.

Sadly, Mia has never really played with dolls but you better believe I will keep her childhood toys in her closet and pretend like I don't notice when she's 13 and drags out the Barbies. I will not, however, send her to the portrait studio with them. 

And, Mia, whenever you're angry with me, because you will be angry with me, and whenever you accuse me of being the worst mom ever, because you will no doubt, at some point accuse me of being the worst mom ever, I'm going to look you right in the eye and ask you one simple question, "Do you have portraits made with your dolls that will haunt you the rest of you life?"

Apology accepted.