The Lies We're Told

A friend of mine, brilliant blogger Martha [hint:  click her name back there to access her blog], recently wrote about finding some childhood toys in her parents’ attic, including some Cabbage Patch dolls (both licensed and the homemade variety). If you only read one of her blogs, read this one about how her parents met. But, if you have time for two, read this one about old toys. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It had a little romance. There’s something for everyone, I tell ya.

But it got me to thinking about my own childhood relics. I don’t have that many these days. If you know me, you know I lost just about all living proof of my existence in a house fire at my Dad’s house in 2010. If you don’t me, well, I seriously doubt you’re reading this blog as I do a pretty good job of keeping tabs on all 3 of my readers, but suffice it to say, I don’t have a lot of souvenirs from my past, at least my past prior to 2011.

I, too, had a Cabbage Patch doll. Well, I had something I was told was a Cabbage Patch doll, but it turned out the mother of one of my parents’ co-workers was whipping up fake ones in her basement and I was one of the lucky recipients. 

Enter Margaret. Margaret was approximately 24" tall, had weird yarn ringlets for hair, was wearing a white cloth diaper cover instead of bloomers, her arms were permanently stretched out in a cruxifixction pose, and she had no shoes, showing off two weird club feet. Margaret looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid in the same way an apple looks like an orange.

I don’t know if my parents thought the $30 price tag was too steep, or they wanted to avoid the in-store riots over these silly dolls, or they thought, “sweet little Valerie won’t notice the difference.” I’ll never know.  I’ll tell you what happened. I went to a slumber party.

Snotty girl:  What is that?

Little Valerie:  It’s my Cabbage Patch girl, Margaret.

Snotty:  Umm, no it’s not.

Valerie:  Yes, it is.

Snotty:  Do you have her birth certificate? (That’s going to be a “negative.”)

Valerie:  No, but she’s real and I love her.

Snotty:  Let’s see the signature on her butt. (Balls.)

Valerie:  Weren’t we going to play a game?

Then Snotty put her doll beside Margaret. It looked something like this:

Thinking about Margaret made me think about other lies my parents told me. Not big ones. Nothing involving fictional characters that break into your house in the night. No, I mean the every day variety.

Things like “you’re not fat; you’re just big boned.”

Baby Valerie, age 3 months (Yes, you read that right.)

And, that the pig tailed sailor look will never go out of style.

Kindergarten

First grade.  2nd verse, same as the 1st.

Trifecta. 2nd grade.

And in the most awkward of middle school years, “you look beautiful…keep the sailor look, lose one of the pigtails.”

5th grade

Now that I’m a parent, you wonder if I ever lie to my kid? You betcha. Like every day.

Kid:  How long before we need to leave?

Me:  Five minutes. (Actual answer:  30 minutes)

Me:  If I have to tell you to clean up one more time, I’m taking away your phone, your iPad, your game system, all the TVs in the house, your books, and all the food in the house.”

Kid:  Did you ever ________ when you were a kid?”

Me:  Uhh, who wants to play a game?” (Actually, I answer every question like this as honestly as I can.)

It’s in these lies, though, that I hope one day, my girl will see more love than lie. I assure you, when I look at Margaret today, yes, she still scares the crap out of me. I mean, she’s almost as tall as I am, but I know my mama loved me enough to commission her. And, to me, that makes Margaret priceless.

Margaret, January 21, 2016 (age: 33 years)