Missing pets . . .

I solved the mystery!!!

More, yes . . . but is it really better?

I had a great childhood. True, there were lots of hand-me-downs, but still a great childhood. Coming from a family with three girls, we had no shortage of dolls in our home. Dolls of all shapes and sizes, different hair colours, different facial expressions but most had the same underlying theme. They did nothing. Not a blessed thing. A few dolls closed their eyes when you would lay them down but that was about it. Apart from my older sister owning a Chatty Cathy doll (and if that commercial doesn't creep you out, not much else will!) and me having a much treasured Thumbelina doll (I didn't realize until just now how much that doll moving looks like a slow motion epileptic fit!), our dolls were totally dependent on our own imaginations. We did a lot of pretending back then - little boys as well as little girls. Play tanks and plastic soldiers didn't shoot so there was a lot of 'pow pow pow!' noises made; we positioned our dolls around little tables and had make believe tea parties. The toys we played with encouraged our imaginations to flourish as we came up with elaborate scenarios where the toys were mere props.

Fast forward to the present day. Nowadays, you can find a doll that will do just about anything. Walking and talking? How passé! Try peeing and pooping - the pooping doll even comes in a diaper or poppy version! (Hmm ... disposable diapers. Tsk tsk tsk!) Then again, what would you expect when the dolls eat and drink? When you gotta go, you gotta go! Even Mattel jumped on the badwagon, pimping our beloved Barbie and Ken - she gets preggers and he shaves! But it seems I can still be amazed after all this time. Introducing ... *insert drumroll sound here* ... the Breastfeeding Doll! Yup, it seems our children aren't growing up fast enough - we now need to have lil girls, who aren't old enough to have breasts of their own, pretending to breastfeed their dolls.

And thus continues the crumbling of civilization ...