As I sat and watched my daughter open her birthday presents last weekend and witnessed the surprise and joy, I was in awe of how simple this age was. I thought to myself then, “age four, what bliss, where a $6.99 Barbie doll was like winning the lottery”.  She was enthralled with everything; the Barbie doll house, furniture and of course the Barbie pool to go with it (now come on, summer’s coming and Barbie needs to spend her hours soaking in the sun).   My point being at that moment she would have been happy with just that one $6.99 Barbie Doll.  Then something happens….

 Okay tell me this, what happens from the time a $6.99 Barbie Doll is the coolest thing to nothing less than laptop computers, Xbox 360’s, Blackberry’s, IPod’s, etc, will do.   Something happens!   Yes, they get older and apparently Barbie doesn’t hold the same awe factor she once did.  OR so I thought!

While I was sitting there and she was opening her presents someone said “oh, next year she’ll want a new laptop”.   No, no way…I still have a few Barbie years to go don’t I? I mean after all she is still only 4 years old.   Then I started thinking… at 4 she plays with my Ipod Touch, has mastered Mario Bros on the Nintendo Wii, she uses a computer mouse like a pro and spends hours playing with her little virtual dog on the handheld Nintendo DS.   

 Oh, oh….what have I done? 

I’ve basically created a little mini me.  A little gadget freak at the age of 4 and this was never so present as it was this week.   Ask me how many times she played with that Barbie house?  Once!   How many times did she take Barbie for a dip in her pool?  Once!    Although she was thrilled to receive all these great presents for her birthday, by Monday she was already back on the Nintendo Wii, yelling “Mommy I made it past the board”. 

So, the age 4 bliss wore off pretty quickly, the $6.99 Barbie doll…not so much like winning the lottery anymore.   Barbie lost out to Mario Brothers and I don’t see this changing anytime soon. 

I mean really, she comes by it honestly, who can fault her?   Barbie may not be her thing, buy boy can she ROCK that Nintendo Wii.   That’s my girl!