My latest obsessive search is for a gently used Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo for Violet. She tried it out at a friend’s home and LOVED it! It is really loud; gaudily decorated and clashes with all of our décor, but it has the ability to keep little babies occupied for up to an hour. An hour that then can be used doing and folding laundry; dishes; preparing dinner or cleaning up the house. I am on Craig’s List every day, continually refreshing my search screen in hopes that someone in the five boroughs, preferably in Manhattan, will post for sale such an item. I had one within my fingertips for purchase, but lost it because I couldn’t get myself out to Williamsburg quick enough. I am now watching four jumperoos for sale on Ebay with hopes that I can snag one for under $50. I just have this desire for Violet to have one. She probably could care less if she has a jumperoo or not, and finds her hand more interesting, entertaining and fun to chew on. I wonder if this is how my mom felt when she did everything she could to get me a Cabbage Patch doll. The family anecdote is that it involved meeting a gentleman in a parking lot on an early Saturday morning. She was given a garbage bag that had an "authentic" Cabbage Patch doll without the box or the birth certificate that accompanied them. No questions were asked and all transactions were made in cash. I think I played with that doll for about ten minutes before I lost interest. Physically having the doll was not as exhilarating or fun as wanting to have the doll and imagining what it would be like to have it. I also wonder whatever happened to Xavier Roberts, the creator of Cabbage Patch dolls. He was everywhere for fifteen minutes and then gone.I think this is only the beginning of the search for the items that you think your child must have or that they will beg and beg and beg to have. In a year I could obsessively be looking for an American Girl doll that looks just like Violet or a Hello Kitty item she just has to have that is only available in Japan.
