My best friend growing up and I didn't like dolls, but we would play with my dollhouse because we used it as a stage for endless storytelling. Her brother had much cooler toys, toys that our parents wouldn't buy for girls, like a castle with knights, an Erector set and a garage that had a car lift. These were much better stages for the storytelling, and we appropriated them frequently. We besieged the castle. We told made up customers made up car problems. We built the props the stories required.

As a kid I had Legos and Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys and whatnot. Sometimes I'd do stuff like build two opposing fleets of spaceships that would have epic battles. Other times I'd take on engineering challenges, like building Lego or Tinker Toy towers that reached the ceiling. Oh, and I built a random number generator out of Legos that used marbles.

Oh, and I built a random number generator out of Legos that used marbles.

Why am I not surprised?

My brother made a bow and arrow out of tinker toys and shot an arrow in his eye permanently damaging it. That's one of my first memories--seeing it happen and him screaming and my mom running down the stairs carrying my baby brother. My older brother still gives me shit about not running for help but I was paralyzed with WTF? just happened??!?!

I built a bow and arrow-ish thing out of Tinkertoys too. (Actually, I considered it more like a phaser). I did have some vague knowledge that it'd be really bad if I shot someone in the eye with it.

That sucks about your brother. I knew a kid in 7th grade who shot another kid I knew in the eye with a piece of aluminum foil, blinding him in that eye. I felt bad for both of them. I guess some kids at that age don't know better....

fed my barbie dolls to my guinea pig. didn't realize I could have converted them to minions.

We made bows and arrows with old broom handles and bicycle innertubes. I'm surprised no one got hurt.

I need one person to respond so I can go ahead and finalize my vacation plans. Just one. And he's not responding to email or either phone line.

We made bows and arrows out of twigs and macrame twine. THey were not very effective. My friend and I ended up whacking the other children in the head with the twigs, instead.

Speaking of toys, my engineering class just tested their trebuchets! The scores were something like "0, 0, 0, 3 inches, 0". As one student said, the trigger mechanism jammed. Er, mechanisms, as it happened to all three of them.

I didn't like dolls, but I had an elaborate collection of Breyer horses that I invented all sorts of dramatic scenarios for. They were usually either mustangs living wild and free, Talking Horses of Narnia, or, you know, Talking Mustangs of Wyoming, living wild and free.

Annabel isn't that into dolls so far, either, but can get elaborate games going with her stuffed animals. Her favorites are a complete set of Backyardigans beanie babies, with whom she acts out scenarios from the show, occasionally interspersed with her own inventions, such as "Backyardigans go to watch the baseball-Mariners, and then go to school the next day."

Oh, and ever since I mentioned that Tyrone on Backyardigans was a moose like the Mariner moose, she says Tyrone is going to be a baseball moose when he gets big.

Today DH tried to get her to wear a new shirt with an applique-type picture of a fawn on the front, and she refused. When they got to daycare, her friend Maya was wearing that shirt, leading us to wonder if the girls are somehow sending psychic signals to each other to avoid being dressed alike...