Before Michael and I were even officially married, Treesa was making our daughter Heather part of the story. Treesa never did have a play wedding with me and Michael. Since that first playtime, she'd imagined us as being married already. When Michael and I decided to marry it was a dolls only event, and our daughter Heather stood with us for the ceremony. So did our other daughters, Courtney and Baby. I'll share more about them with you later.
Heather was given to Treesa for Christmas the year before she got Michael and me. Heather is a Heart Family Baby Cousins doll with dark hair, and it was most likely the dark hair that gave Treesa the idea to make her mine and Michael's daughter. My own hair is black, and Michael's is a two tone brown color. A year later, Treesa was given a Babysitter Courtney doll for Christmas. Courtney was boxed with a little baby girl doll, dressed in a pink outfit. For years Treesa stubbornly insisted on thinking of the baby as a boy. Treesa didn't have any little boy dolls at the time, so my guess would be she just wanted more variety. She used to think of her baby mertwin dolls as boys as well, in spite of their purple tails and shiny bonnets.
Treesa could never decide on a name for the baby, so she just became Baby. Like Heather, Courtney had dark hair. Baby's hair is a much lighter color, but it still looked brown to Treesa. So Treesa decided to make Courtney and Baby part of our family. Being the parents of three girls was overwhelming at times, but our family wasn't done growing yet. Two or three years later, my sister Kiki joined us.
Kiki
Kiki is a Glitter Beach Kira doll. From what Kiki told us, Treesa saw her on the shelf at a discount toy store and begged her parents to buy her. Treesa's parents bought Kiki on the condition that she would be put aside and Treesa would not get her until Christmas. It took some time for the rest of us to adjust to having Kiki in the family. She has one personality trait in particular that took some getting used to. To put it bluntly, Kiki is a bit of a flirt. She never means any harm by it. I know now my sister would never deliberately break up a happy couple. But at the time I did feel a little threatened by her. Here was a new doll, with all her fresh out of the box beauty, complementing my husband in a way that seemed more than friendly. This in spite of the fact that she knew Michael and I were a married couple. And I was supposed to welcome this doll into my family? I knew that Michael would never abandon me, but I still dreaded having Kiki so close by. I didn't know what she was capable of. I worried what she might do to try and separate my husband and me.
Even Treesa noticed the flirty way that Kiki would sometimes look at Michael, and this was before we started speaking to Treesa! It did take some time for Treesa to notice the signs, but once she noticed she took action. Because Treesa didn't realize Kiki's flirting was harmless, she tried to solve things by throwing another doll into the story. Her idea was to hand pick a doll to be Kiki's boyfriend. The doll she chose was an Ocean Friends Ken that she named Jacques, after Jacques Cousteau.
Jacques
This could very easily have been a disaster. But Kiki and Jacques were both very good humored about Treesa's misguided meddling, and they ended up becoming close friends. I don't think their relationship was ever romantic. Jacques is a little like Kiki herself, in that they both enjoy the company of other dolls but neither one of them is in a hurry to settle down. Jacques, like Kiki, is also a complementer. I've received some of his complements over the years, and I will say that he knows how to flatter a doll. But I would never throw away the life I have with Michael, especially not for someone like Jacques, who flatters every female doll who comes his way.
Now the time has come to discuss something that is still very painful for me. After Treesa got Kiki but before Jacques joined our group, Michael and I lost our daughter Courtney. She was thrown away after her neck was broken. It was a hard blow for our family, but what made it all the more difficult to bear was the fact that at the time Treesa had sort of lost interest in dolls. She kept several collector dolls on the shelf above her bed, but her playline dolls were scattered around the playroom in her family's basement. We were still played with by Treesa's younger sisters. But in spite of that it was a time of uncertainty for all of us. Not only was our future unsure, it was also hard for us to get used to the idea that Treesa was growing up. She'd been such a steady presence in our lives.
Then the day came when Treesa decided to 'rescue' her playline dolls from the basement and put us aside for her future children. She even bought a clear plastic storage box to keep us in. One by one we were brought up from the basement and cleaned. But Treesa made the mistake of sealing us in the box before we were completely dry. Moisture in the closed space led to mold growth, and we had to be treated with bleach. But at least we survived. Maxie and Jazzie were left behind in the basement playroom, after Treesa told her sisters she didn't want them any more. A few weeks later Treesa found Maxie on the playroom floor with her neck severely broken. Treesa was horrified. She yelled at her sisters, telling them that just because she'd said she didn't want the dolls anymore didn't mean that her sisters could break them. Then Treesa brought Jazzie upstairs to join us.
I'm not sure how or why Treesa's interest in dolls returned. Treesa thinks it happened when the baby sister Kelly dolls reached the stores. She may be right, in part. But looking back now, with hindsight, I think it was just a matter of time. I've known Treesa long enough now to know that she has never completely lost interest in anything. Things sometimes get pushed aside by new interests, but she always comes back to them in time.
(to be continued...)
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