The Big Birthday Gift Drama

Melissa had a fun birthday celebration full of sleepovers and gifts. We let her open gifts the night before her birthday because, well, why not? We also got a little pre-cake, and she is wearing part of its packaging beacuse, well, why not?

For the real birthday we made a cookie cake ourselves, and Melissa decorated it. Pretty nice, huh?

So...remember the American Girl story? As you may recall, in Chicago it took a few days for Melissa to recover from her visit to the American Girl store and remember that she had never, in her whole life, really wanted an American Girl doll. So, as her birthday approached, I shopped faithfully according to her list. Her list included Barbies, earrings, purses, dress-up clothes, a big stuffed dog, a parrot (which we did not get) - things like that, and no American Girl Doll.

Then, three days before the birthday.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Miss?"

"If you can, for my birthday, I'd really like an Our Generation doll. If you can."

Our Generation dolls are Target's version of the American Girl doll. She has two of these, in fact, and we had been spending a lot of time playing with them and trying to make their hair nice. You see, Missy had been spending a lot of time next door at the Staffords. My friend Joy Stafford had been showing Missy the American Girl catalog and her neice had been letting Missy in on the joys of her American Girl doll while I had been busy doing laundry.

Now we all knew Missy did not really want an Our Generation doll. They had already shown their inferiority by having almost-impossible-to-repair hair. And this was going to be her ten year birthday - a biggie. However, American Girl dolls can only be bought in a few cities in the country, and Joplin, Missouri is not one of them. Online, they are shipped from far-away Wisconsin. The birthday was in 3 days! Plus, these dolls are not cheap, and we had already bought a bunch of gifts.

I looked for a used doll. No luck.

I pondered, sighed, and went to work.....

I asked Missy to look at the American Girl dolls online and show me what she liked so IF I got her an Our Generation doll I would know what to look for. She found the perfect girl, and gazed longingly at her picture. We revised our gift purchases, and that night I placed an special order for a 1-day delivery.

Unfortunately, our Girl got stuck in bad weather. She went to Kentucky, and then back to Wisconsin. Now she was running a day late, and she did not have that day to spare. She is a sweet Girl, though, and she wrote Melissa a letter about how she was coming as soon as possible.

Then, because UPS is a much more awesome company than I ever realized, our Girl got a special upgraded travel ticket and arrived on Saturday morning - Melissa's real birthday! You can see how she felt about that. Melissa and Ella

(The blue bag holds all of Ella's special hair stuff...also a birthday gift.)

And they all lived happily ever after.