Dollhouse
Finn’s second birthday is coming up, and because I know she’ll get lots of presents (including a tricycle and an Elmo doll) and won’t know what to play with first, I gave her one present a month early.
I knew that a dollhouse would be a good choice, since she played with the one at Grandma Meryl’s endlessly. I bought a very simple kit and painted the same color as Finn’s green wall, because I still have almost a full gallon of that green paint, and because people will say “How sweet! You matched her room!” and I didn’t even have to try. 
It took me a week to build the house, and every morning Finn would come into the kitchen, see it in pieces on the dining room table and announce, “It finished, Mommy.” I explained that it wasn’t quite finished, and that when the furniture arrived she could play with it. So every morning after that, she came downstairs and announced “When furniture comes, I pay wid it.”
And then one day, we were outside and the the UPS guy drove up the driveway at 100 miles an hour, and Finn and I met him by the kitchen door. “My furniture!” said Finn, who tried to carry the heavy box, and probably would have ripped it open with her teeth if I wasn’t a step ahead of her. Luckily, I’d finished all but the roof shingles when the furniture arrived. In about ten seconds we had the dollhouse at eye level, the furniture installed, and Finn was reluctant to pull herself away to eat dinner.
So, let me tell you about the house: A simple two-story Victorian cottage, it’s probably already not large enough (Real Goods makes a larger model that is basically the same, and I should’ve bought that one for - $80 instead of $50 - this is definitely the cheapest place to buy these kits). It’s inhabited by a really sweet gay couple, Bobo and Gorilla. They have the hippest modernist furniture (that it not only beautiful, but has survived being dropped repeatedly on our concrete floors). Voila, who makes the amazing furniture, also makes many other items that I covet (for Finn, of course, not me – yeah, right).
For example, there is this very cool car, that would be great for Bobo and Gorilla. Although they’re alseep in their bed right now, they often like to go on adventures away from home (currently this involves being wrapped in the pink blanket that came with the bed and placed on the bookshelves). And maybe they need the pets and accessories (it’s unlikely they’ll ever have children, and they could have something to dote on). The dollhouse cookware would be great if it didn’t look like something begging to be swallowed by the under three set; I’d like to see them do SOMETHING other than watch Elmo on their large screen tv and take baths together.