December, 1955

I have a Debbie doll, and I have a sister, Debbie, and I got them both at about the same time.

The "bathinette" is yellow.  It is a table -- tall.  It has a rubber hammock and a length of rubber tube for Mommy to fill the hammock with warm water to give Debbie baths.  The bar of Ivory soap is smaller than the bars we use in our bathtub.  I think that Mommy got it at the Hospital.  It makes the water scummy -- just like it does in my bathtub.  But Debbie's skin smells sweet, when washed -- just like my skin smells when I get washed.  And Debbie's little bald head smells like Johnson's baby shampoo -- just like mine does.

Debbie has a black scab where her belly button should be.  She is so little.

The bathinette has a lid to cover it, which makes it into a "changing table" that Mommy uses to change Debbie's diapers.  The diapers are cotton -- white.  Over them go rubber pants. When they are wet, Mommy swishes them in the toilet while it's flushing, and then puts them in the diaper pail.  After the diaper pail is full, you do the wash.  Then you tumble them in the clothes dryer.  If you hang them on the line, they get too stiff, and give the baby a rash.

Debbie sleeps in my old crib.  I sleep in Mommy's old bed!  I saw her in this bed when I was a baby myself.  My crib was in the same room as Mommy's bed.  My earliest memory, probably 1953, was looking out the crib at Mommy laying on her bed (now my bed).  We lived with Grandpa and Grandma on Rathbone Street.  Daddy was in the Navy, and I didn't know him yet, back then.

My bed is gray.  It has a bookcase headboard.

(This will always be my bed until I marry Mark VanZyl in 1972.)

Mommy puts a "receiving blanket" on my lap, and lets me hold my baby sister.

I am three years old.