If you follow me on Twitter (and please
do: https://twitter.com/IsItHotInHereMM),
you
know that recently, my 8-year old said she wanted to make a
voodoo doll. At
first, I was a little concerned that she wanted to make one of ME
(aka "She Who Yells A Lot"), but as it turned out, the victim is her
brother. Whew! So why him? “Payback, Mom, payback,” she said. She's PISSED at
him, big time, most of the time. So I let her make the voodoo doll. Here's why:
While voodoo dolls are associated with
evil, they're actually meant to gain influence over whomever you're
making the doll about. Diva is 8; her brother is almost 14. She
weighs maybe 45 pounds; he's heavier and taller. She is jealous of
him and the privileges he gets because of his age. If making a
voodoo doll makes her feel better, I'm all for it.
Here's how we made it:
- We took an old shirt the Teen had outgrown. The doll is more “powerful” if you use a personal item from the victim.
- I drew and made a template out of cardboard. I did it freehand, but free templates can be found here: http://www.allcrafts.net/dolls.htm.
- She cut the material out using the template.
- Since Diva did not want to sew, we used a glue gun to glue the two pieces together, leaving a hole for stuffing.
- This particular doll will not be washed, so I used part of a plastic grocery bag to stuff it; then she glued the hole shut.
- She then used markers to color the doll so that it looks like her brother. Note the red sweatshirt that the kid wears, no matter what the weather. On 100 degree days, he STILL wears the shirt outside.
Diva was giddy at the prospect of
having influence over her brother while he had decided, quite kindly, to play along
with the premise of the doll. He was at a friend's house while the
doll was being created, but my daughter still took great pleasure at
making the doll do a split, stand on it's head, etc. When we went to
pick Junior up, she asked if he'd done the split or felt anything
weird. He answered that yes, he inexplicably HAD done a split and
had had a headache just at the precise moment when she was playing
with the doll. “MOMMY, IT WORKS,” she yelled.
Because I helped her make the doll, I
explained that it won't work all the time, which gives us some wiggle
room when she wants her brother to do things he just can't be
bothered to do. When she finds out the truth, my explanation will be that
I wanted to see her to see what a wonderful creation she was capable
of making and that I just wanted her to have fun. My sense is that
she's going to become bored with the doll pretty quickly. In fact,
as I write this, neither she nor I know where the dang thing is.
It's hard enough being a little sister.
If making a voodoo doll empowers her, makes her feel better, then
I'm happy for my daughter. More power to her!
~~
Please check back in with me soon! Oh, and check out my boards on Pinterest at http://www.pinterest.com/isithotinheremm.
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