American Girl Doll Sleepover

Julia thoroughly loved her American Girl Doll workshop yesterday, coming home with not only a sleeping bag and pillow she had decorated for her doll Julie, but also a decorated picnic basket filled with play-doh goodies she had constructed.  Among these goodies were a box of chocolate chip cookies, a lollipop, an ice cream float, and a pizza:

Julia couldn't get enough of her new doll accessories, and played sleepover with her Julie doll all afternoon and evening:

Today the game has gotten even more elaborate, incorporating a variety of other dolls into the sleepover scenario.  Among Julie's sleepover friends are Julia's "Bitty Twins," May and Elina, who are 2.  (Julia does not seem to realize that her sister, a 2-year-old, does not speak like a baby first learning words, as May and Elina tend to speak in deliberately mispronounced baby talk.)  Other sleepover guests include Sophia (6), Rose Flower (1), Rapunzel (5), and Madeleine's doll Baby Lily (3 months.)  Julia has proclaimed herself to be 19, and Madeleine is stuck remaining her actual age in the game, since Julia insists that Madeleine be the same age as the Bitty Twins.  (Does that mean they're really triplets??)


So it was that Julia and Madeleine conducted a multi-doll sleepover in Madeleine's room this afternoon:

Shown above, from left to right: Rose Flower, May, Elina, Sophia, and Julie.  Not pictured: Baby Lily and Rapunzel.

19-year-old Julia presided over this sleepover, offering the dolls something to eat from her picnic basket, telling them when it was time to go to sleep, and tucking them all in.  Now, lest you think that at 19, Julia has already given birth to seven children (eight if Madeleine is counted as one of the children, which seems unclear to me), let me reassure you that Julia is not mother to these dolls.

ME: So you're the mommy of all the girls?
JULIA: (brightly) No, I'm not the mommy!  They don't HAVE a mommy!

Oh.  Well, that's so much better.  So, maybe it's not actually a slumber party.  Maybe these poor, unfortunate, motherless dolls are sleeping on the hard floor of an orphanage. 

Hang on.  Now I need to clarify this issue so I understand.

ME: So you're NOT the mother?
JULIA: I'm the BABY-SITTER!
ME: And they don't have a mommy?
JULIA: No, actually, they DO have a mommy.
ME: But where is their mommy?
JULIA: Uh, she's ALWAYS at work.  She works ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT. 

Okay.  Phew.  So the children are not the product of a teenage mother, and they are not orphans.  They're just children of a negligent, workaholic mother who leaves her seven (eight?) kids with a 19-year-old all day and night.  What a cheerful game.  At least they all get to eat pizza and lollipops and ice cream and sleep on the floor together in the same room, right?  Par-TAY!