My Moll! My Suck! My Moll!

My niece, the Precious Little Pumpkin started her life as a fan of The Big Comfy Couch.  It was a show about a clown named Loonette and her doll, Molly.  Although Pumpkin's doll was actually Loonette, she called her, Molly and she took her everywhere.  Pumpkin's life revolved around her Moll and her "suck", her name for her pacifier.

Now, Pumpkin just considered us all her staff, here to wait on her and meet all of her wants and needs.  Often, we'd hear the command, "My Moll! My Suck!" and we'd scramble to provide.

We got her a real Molly doll, but it was her Molly, really Loonette that she loved. She wore that thing out.  Pumpkin's Moll doesn't look much like this one. My sister-in-law has it put away in a box, along with the "suck" and the infamous Barbie dress (a story for another day).  Pumpkin's doll has no red left on her nose, a button sewn onto her belly, because she asked my mom to give Moll a belly button and worst of all, just a tiny little dread lock of hair on one side.

The Pumpkin had a thing for hair. She'd wrap it around her pacifier and stuff it into her mouth.  Think about how gross it feels when you have a piece of hair in your mouth. I can not, for an instant, imagine voluntarily stuffing hair into my mouth. I shudder just at the thought, and my niece would  have us pulling out our hair for her. Or, she'd pull out our hair. Sometimes she would just run the pacifier over the dog's back to get a hair fix.  We, at least, would grow the hair back. Moll wasn't so lucky.  When she was down to the last tiny little nub of hair, Pumpkin went into preservation mode. It is the most disgusting little lock of hair ever. It's all hard and stuck into a little clump. I'm sure there's cookie crumbs and snot and who knows what else holding that thing together.

In true Velveteen Rabbit style, it's that one Loonette doll that truly was the Pumpkin's treasured friend and comfort.  When Moll got really disgusting, my parents came across a brand new one somewhere and quickly bought it up and raced it home for the Pumpkin.  There has never been a more disgusted looking toddler than the one who thought her Moll was being threatened by this shiny, red nosed, full haired interloper.  I don't know what happened to the new and "improved" Moll, she probably made an underprivileged little girl very happy.  But, there's a box with the treasured original Moll that comes out every few years for a laugh and a smile.