Everyone has a First. Kirsten is mine.

It started with an American Girl doll.

Sure, I had scads of barbies, with closets bigger than my own, not to mention the three cars, house (it was really a quartered box, made in my garage by my dad, but it might as well have been a dream home), and a camper (all were shared with a sister, but that's a fair amount to go around), but they were just toys. American Girl dolls combined my love of reading, passion for history, and material nature, and I wanted one.

I would have been happy with any of them. (Except for Molly. She wore glasses, after all, and had those stupid pigtails. I needed to wear glasses, and nobody looked pretty in glasses, but I would never wear pigtails after turning eight.)

The other three that were available at the time all had their selling points, so on the Christmas list was simply, "American Girl (Not Molly)". My parents watched me spend hours with every catalog, circling the things I wanted, but they never took a close enough look at it to realize the dolls I wanted so badly were mail order only.

Christmas morning comes, and there's a box under the tree that I am so certain was The Doll. I am only half right. It was only a doll. She was very pretty, and, as my dad explained, looked a little like me, or even that Kirsten, one of the other kind of dolls I want. My parents explained that they couldn't find American Girls anywhere. Even Sears didn't have anything like it.

Even though she was porcelain and couldn't do much besides sit on the shelf, I fell in love. I named her Elizabeth, which my mother swore was the name of my imaginary friend as an even younger child. And, she sat on the shelf, but I'd regularly dust her off, and finger curl her ringlets back into place. A few times I even took her hat off, and put it in storage.

Still, the next birthday, an American Girl was on the list again. And, the next Christmas, and the birthday after that. I got three more porcelain dolls, because my parents could find them at Kmart and the mall, and they were cheaper than American Girls. It seems ungrateful, and perhaps a little selfish, but each was a little less special than the last. The clothes were beginning to seem dowdy to me, and the ringlets too hard to keep looking pretty.

All the same, the next Christmas, American Girl was on the list again. I circled what I wanted in the catalog, including the latest addition, Addy, and much of her collection, but my mom finally said it was too much. The dolls were too expensive, I didn't take care of the ones I had (the dusting had fallen off a bit), and I was too greedy circling too much of the catalog.

Christmas came, and there's another long box under the tree. I remember wondering why they'd get me another porcelain doll, when I "didn't take care of the ones I had." But when I opened that box, it wasn't another porcelain doll. It was Kirsten, the pioneer girl, and she was wonderful.

Once I calmed down, my parents laid down the law:
I can't take down the braids in her hair.
I can't play with her when my friends are over.
I can't take her outside of the house.
I can't just leave her lying around, she lives on the shelf with the rest of my dolls.
I can change her clothes, but I can't expect them to buy me any additional outfits.
I need to take care of my other dolls, too.

I still follow most of those rules, though I have re-styled her hair  a few times.

But, I follow those rules for different reasons now.

Even though I couldn't really play with Kirsten, I could still hug her. Her cloth torso was well-stuffed and her vinyl was warm, a drastic change from the cold porcelain and flimsy cloth body of my other dolls.

Now, I don't play with Kirsten because she means too much to me. I still hug her when I need to.

Kirsten was joined by Felicity and Josefina, in the next few years, and their restrictions were looser because I had earned part of the money for them. I could play with them. And now, I have lots and lots of other dolls that I can (and do) play with. I style their hair, I make them clothes, I take pictures of them outside, I pose them, I change their clothes regularly.

But, there are two things that I firmly believe:
1)My collection would not exist if it weren't for Kirsten's strict rules.
2)Kirsten was the first, and is the best. She is wonderful.