Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow

The doll’s house

 

I am five—Santa has been.

I am so excited.

I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t know I wanted it.

Now I want It.

It’s a beautiful big doll’s house. It has an upstairs and a downstairs.

The front opens wide like cupboard doors. The windows are real, I can peep inside through the glass, they have curtains too.

My teeny-weeny dolls and my baby boy/girl twins can go into all the rooms. The babies were there, asleep in the cots, when I opened the house . There is a mummy and daddy too. Now they go up the stairs hup hup hup or they can drop straight in when I take the red tiled roof off.

My favourite thing is the toilet. My dolls don’t really sit down on the toilet, they are not bendy enough. Instead, I like to take out the toilet and spend time playing with the lid. Flipping it open and close, close and open, over and over; it’s fascinating; it’s pink like the bath. The bath becomes really excellent on the days when I sneak out to our own bathroom sink tap, stretch in with both handies, and dribble in water right up to the very top.

I carry the tiny pink bath back with me to my own house, making sure mummy can’t see me in the hall walking with water on the carpet. I get back safely walking on tiptoes, walking slow slow so as not to spill a drop, then bit by bit slide it into place. My little bath sloshes water onto the floor but I can get that off myself, rub with my finger and lick it off. Now I pop my babies in for a nice warm bath – Jimmy after my uncle (a twin too), and little Josephine after my best friend at school.

Baby Josephine is a bit sick, so I wash her gently. I have no towel, but I have a bit of toilet paper.

Then off to bed, in their pink and blue cots, tuck them in, listen to the story. Kiss good night. Turn out the light. They are asleep in no time.

There are lights in my dolly’s house, I can switch them on and off, another game I call

on and off

on and off

switch on and off

There’s a secret battery somewhere, like our torch. Sometimes the light stops working and Dad fixes it.

The carpets in my house, a red one and a blue one and a green one, are very flat and soft, nice to stroke, not like the scratchy tufty ones at home.

Now I know the real love and attention to detail in that beautiful never forgotten house. Time spent cutting felt to exactly fit the floors. The house did not come fully furnished, so furniture was chosen and set into exactly the right positions. A cooker and a table with chairs ready for their dinners. I think tiny cutlery too –  I still have the sensation of a teacup on my pinkie fitting perfectly. A bed for the parents with tiny sheets and pillows. The two identical cots. Where was the lovely family that lived there found? How long did the search take? A nice loving good family. It was all made ready for the dolls to play and live out their tender lives. Now I know it wasn’t Santa who gave me this wonderous life-long gift, but someone else.

 

Catherine