Barbies...who knew?

My mother.

When she gets a request from someone, she will go to the ends of the earth to fill it.

Olivia likes Barbies.

My mom has spent the last 4 months collecting, searching, buying and cleaning Barbie clothes, dolls and furniture. She has gone to the extent of ironing dresses, brushing and braiding hair and individually bagging outfits.

She is comical and amazing at the same time. It's a lot of effort for someone who is incapable of appreciating it as much as she should.

Last weekend, my mom came to visit for Eden's baptism and brought with her a giant bin full of well-loved Barbie madness from my aunt who passed away in February.

As we sat with Olivia and swooned over the magic that is Barbie, I pulled out a certain doll that had me close to passing out. At first I smiled and then it turned into full fledged, doubled-over hysterical laughter. The more I looked at that thing, the more I couldn't breathe. This poor gumby style Barbie had been through years of salon torture and my mother, bless her heart, had attempted to tame the hairy beast. Unfortunately, her hair would not lay down. I was drooling, crying and gasping for air at the same time. (Truth be told, a large portion of my madness was just from sheer exhausting mixed with the 11:00pm hour.)

I had my mother hold it up against the door so I could take a picture lest the "do" be undone before I could capture it. Look at how serious she is about the end product!

Even though it was plenty hilarious, the funniest part turned out to be later when my dad chimed in with a story. He had been laying in bed one night a few days prior, a light was coming from behind the closed bathroom door and he was questioning a loud scraping sound. Brick on concrete if you will, over and over again. As he arose to see what on earth could be making that sound, he opened the door to find my mother lovingly brushing, with all her might, the mane of that gumby Barbie. Hair flying & poofing, tender care exuding.

She did the best she could but I'll tell you, if it looks this bad now, I can only imagine...

That Barbie is now mine forever. She even joined me on my bike ride the next morning as my special passenger.