Learning to Braid

When I was a little girl, Cabbage Patch Dolls were all the rage. I don't remember which year exactly, but one Christmas, the dolls were selling for outrageous sums ($500!) and though I wanted one, I knew that would never happen. My family was just too poor. As an adult, I realize that we were VERY poor, but as a child, I didn't know this. Anyway, when Christmas came, my younger sister and I each received a Cabbage Patch Doll...of sorts.

See, my grandma Reed, my mom's mom, was handy with crafty stuff and sewing. (This trait is clearly not genetic as I have none of those same talents.) My grandma had spent the fall sewing a doll for me and a doll for my sister. The only difference between our two dolls is the hair color. My doll had blond hair and my sister's doll had reddish-brown hair. A few years ago, my mom gave me my doll.

My grandma did her best to replicate the fat little feet and dimpled arms. My cabbage patch had a dimpled face. My grandma even painted her big eyes on. This doll is wearing one of the dresses that I (or my sister or both) wore when I was a baby.

Pardon the mooning, but you have to see the detail my grandma put into this doll. She has a dimpled butt! There's a leg coming unstitched and I'm not sure what to do about that. Grandma?

Yesterday morning Kilee wanted her hair braided. It's just getting long enough for little tiny braids. While I'm braiding, she informs me that so-and-so and so-and-so already know how to braid and will I teach her how to braid after school? And how did I learn to braid? Did Nana (my mom) teach me? That part I can't remember. Maybe Nana, maybe Aunt Monique. Probably Aunt Monique. For some reason, Monique (my sister five years older) did my hair most of the time growing up and taught me how to curl my bangs. I tell Kilee that I don't remember for certain, but that I practiced all the time on my Cabbage Patch Doll, which is now in her closet.

After school, Kilee brings me the doll and sits next to me on the couch. I pick up some yellow yarn hair and split it into three sections. I show Kilee how to hold her hands and put the hair between her fingers. I pick up three sections on the other side of the doll's big head and I spend the next ten minutes teaching her how to do a simple braid.

I teach her to rotate her wrists as she passes the yarn from one hand to the other. I teach her to keep her hands close to the bottom of the braid for a neater braid. I teach her to keep two sections between three fingers on one hand and then on the other hand. She learns fast.

Today, I'm eating lunch and Kilee is sitting in my chair behind me chattering away to me while I eat and read the paper. "Mom, this is what you did when you were a kid, isn't it? Who taught you to braid again? Aunt Monique? How many is she in your family? How many are in your family, Mom? Wow, seven. Mom, you are so lucky. You're luckier than I'll ever be. You have two sisters and I'll never have any." (Cue tears.) I turn around and there's my little girl, with a Cabbage Patch Doll in her lap, braiding away like she's been doing it forever.

After just one day, her braids look so much better than yesterday. Her fingers know exactly what to do and her wrists rotate like they've been doing it forever.Kilee's right. I was lucky. I was blessed with two sisters. One who taught me to braid, and the other who spent hours across the bedroom from me, braiding her own doll's hair. I was blessed with a wonderfully talented grandmother who made very special gifts for me. I was blessed with a little girl who is curious and talkative and so much like my younger sister that there are times I think the line in Heaven got mixed up and I got her daughter.

I never did get a "real" Cabbage Patch doll. I already have one, and now, so does Kilee.