When Grace was in 1st grade she “learned” how to make Voodoo dolls on the bus.  I was in my classroom, grading papers when I felt the sharpest sensation – the pain of a single hair being pulled from my head.  She was making a Voodoo doll of me!  I said absolutely not.

Later that night she repurposed an old Sporty Spice Barbie by transforming it into a Voodoo doll of herself.  She wandered upstairs to get something when Laura got a hold of the Barbie/Spice-girl/Voodoo doll and smacked it down on the couch.  Gracie spotted it and threw herself to the floor.  Laura got a wicked gleam in her eye and made the doll hit itself repeatedly, which of course Gracie gently did.  Then she made the doll contort itself into all sorts of positions, Gracie imitated them all, in a mechanical robot-like fashion.  By that time the whole family was laughing.

“Hey Laura, can you make the Voodoo doll brush it’s teeth?”

Sure enough, Laura stood the doll up and “squeak, squeak, squeak” walked it to the bathroom.  Along followed Gracie, straight legged, bent arms to brush her teeth.

“Well then, maybe the Voodoo doll could go to bed now?”  Laura took the doll, placed it in the bed, covered it with a blanket and said good-night to it. Gracie was asleep in ten minutes.

Guess how we woke Grace up the next morning?  The Voodoo doll got dressed quickly, picked out Cheerios for breakfast and let me brush it’s hair!  It was a great day.