Baby Beans

I don't recall which one was the Year of Baby Beans, but I do recall the silly little bean filled dolls with smiling faces and bright colored pajamas. My sisters each found one under the Christmas tree that year, as did my five Plotzker cousins. Eight little girls and seven Baby Beans.

On our holiday visit to Aunt Barb's house, all eight of us girls lined the stairway to the upstairs bedrooms and the Baby Beans slid down the railing one after another while we handed them back up to the top fire brigade style, over and over again. It was a simple, yet wonderful, laughter-filled game.

When my sisters tore the wrapping paper off their Baby Beans gifts on Christmas Eve, it hadn't occurred to me that perhaps there should have been a similar package for me. I didn't feel left out until I found that every one of my cousins had also received one of the floppy little dolls. I was the only one without. Later Mom explained that they had ordered a doll for me too, a sleepy, yawning, orange clad baby, but the company had run out and mine never arrived. I think she felt bad, but needn't have. I managed okay and learned that I didn't have to have everything the others had in order to have fun.

I took it well as a child and only missed my nonexistent doll during our stairway game. As an adult I find myself looking him up on ebay after watching The Santa Claus 2 where Santa pulls all kinds of vintage gifts from his bag, and I smile at the memory of childhood games with my passel of girl cousins.