Blog 12: Raby

           When I was six years old, I received my favorite Easter present of all time. It was a rabbit doll that my mother had made. She had made a rabbit for my sister, Diana, when she was younger and decided to do the same for me. She bought the pattern at a store and brought it home about a month before Easter. She cut out all the pieces and sewed them together before using a chopstick to stuff cotton into a small hole that she had left unsewn. She sewed all the pieces together in a way that I could still move the doll’s arms and legs. The rabbit’s ears had wire to hold them up and a small round ball of cloth stuffed with cotton served as the doll’s nose. My mother also bought print to make a dress and matching bonnet for the doll. My mother used much of her free time making the rabbit doll and even stayed up all night before Easter so that I would have a finished doll the next morning.

            I had seen my mother working on the doll most nights before I was sent to bed and knew that it was my Easter present, but I was excited to get my doll all the same. I named her Raby. It is short for Rabbit and is pronounced rabb-ee. I was six and did not know that there should have been two b’s in Raby to get the desired phonetics. She was white with black eyes, a cute little round nose, and no mouth. Her bonnet and dress are blue with pink tulips. The dress had Velcro in the back and the bonnet had two holes for her ears and a small blue ribbon rose to hold the rim of her hat out of her eyes.

 Raby was my favorite doll and I took her everywhere with me. I even took her on car trips; she had her own seat and always wore a seatbelt but had to stay in the car when we went into stores. My mother soon took the wire out of her ears so that I wouldn’t get poked with it if the wires moved out of place. My sister would sometimes take Raby from me to pick on me like siblings do and I would respond with a swift kick in the shin. Occasionally, Raby’s ears or other appendages would fall off and I would run crying to my mother for her to fix Raby. I even waited outside the dryer whenever Raby had to be washed.

When I was about eight or nine I realized that I was getting too old to carry Raby around and found her a nice box to keep her in for safe keeping. She is still in my closet in her box and every now and then when I am cleaning I will find the box and take her out of it to look at her and think about my younger years. She now has a hole about where her mouth would be from the friction wearing the cloth down caused by the many plastic tea cups and toy baby bottles.