Last Thursday my roommate went to the Seattle store to see the new release items, and was so angry upon discovering that Tenney and Logan had taken over half of Gabriela's display that she bought not only a Gabriela of her own, but also a #58.
As you may recall, I had been planning to buy Gabriela. However, now that my roommate has one it felt like having two in the house would be too many (especially since we've begun more or less seeing our collections as one giant overlapping collection) and I was able to compare her more extensively to Melody and realized that having two dolls who so closely resembled each other would be less fun for me than the chance to add a more unique doll to my collection.
It sent me back to the drawing board: I had more tax refund money than anticipated, so I could afford another doll, and while I'm very upset about the fallout from the revelations about American Girl's upcoming permapanties bodies I'm also very upset about this Tenney and Logan nonsense. I'm a believer in voting with my dollars, so if Tenney and Logan dolls are going to be flying off the shelves then by goodness I wanted to be responsible for at least one doll of color finding a home at the same time. But which one?
I've always been incredibly drawn to #62, but that would make a third Sonali mold in my collection and I didn't want to have another modern who seemed too old to fit in with my much-beloved Youngji and Winifred. I've also liked #53 for a long time, but so does my roommate's three-year-old daughter, so we already have plans to get her one a few years down the road, when she is ready to own and take care of a full-sized AG doll. (She's really good when it comes to leaving our dolls alone when she's not supervised, and playing gently with them when she is, but we don't want to have a doll that we know she really, really wants around to tempt her when she isn't ready to have it herself yet. It seems unfair.)
My third option was #31, who I've always thought was cute in store displays but only recently began to seriously consider buying. Other points in her favor were that she's an Addy mold doll, and I love the Addy mold, and she looked like she would fit in well with Winifred and Youngji.
So I went to the store last Saturday and considered my options...
