OK.

I know regular readers know I am a little nutty about Strawberry Shortcake dolls. What can I say. My neighbor Heidi and best friend when I was in my formative year had a beautiful case FULL, FULL I SAY, of nearly all the strawberry shortcake dolls. I had a mere pittance compared to her. Needless to say, we adored Strawberry and all her friends, and spent many a happy hour whiling away the time playing with them. So basically, I’m saying…. let’s blame Heidi!

Fast forward about a bajillion years, when I am grown with a small daughter of my own, and I saw them for sale for Target. I didn’t go nutty. But here was a doll that was bright eyed, innocent, GIRL-LOOKING (as opposed to skanky ho, (bratz) woman looking, (barbies) or related to royalty (princesses) –what’s not to love for your 3-4 year old daughter?) so yes, I was pleased, and didn’t mind purchasing this toy for my daughter.

Since then, I have gotten a little nutty. I think it started when we found this beauty at a garage sale:

How can you not love this? This is just maximum awesome! When I saw this with a $2 price tag on it, all I can say is, if Jocelyn didn’t want it, I DID. So we purchased it, and it’s seen hours of fun with Jocelyn. Our older neighbor girl even tried to buy it from Jocelyn before I put a stop to it, hee hee.

I’ve found that Strawberry and/or her friends make excellent birthday presents and we’ve tried to spread the strawberry love whenever we went a birthday-ing. When we drew names at christmastime for family present-giving, it wasn’t any surprise when Ethan got me a Strawberry doll for his present to me. Sweet 🙂

So, while I wasn’t nutty, I was a fan. The nuttiness came when suddenly, they all went on clearance at Toys R Us. It was right around christmas time, when I was shopping and looking things up online, so of course I noticed. What did this MEAN??? Would there be NO MORE STRAWBERRY?? All signs pointed to YES.

Well….. I panicked a bit. I bought some of the clearance dolls on the TRU website. After all, they were marked down to $4.98. It was a screaming deal, right?

And then before they arrived, I stopped and bought some at the store. Because there were SOME that they had IN THE STORE that they hadn’t had ONLINE! Come on, work with me here people!

OK, so this is when I think we can say, the nuttiness for all things Strawberry was signed and certified. When I was done, our “present closet” had a HUYOOGE TRU bag filled with Strawberry, Lemon Meringue, Crepes Suzette, some of the ponies, BABY Strawberry, all in Rock-a-berry, Winter-berry, or some “twist” variety.

So, if there was no more strawberry dolls in the world, at least I had a stash. There’s a very real sense of relief with that, you know!

The stash came in pretty handy. A few came out for Jocelyn’s birthday. A few more came out friend’s birthdays. What can I say, it’s very handy having a Strawberry stash! And in the back of my mind, I knew they were there, even if no more strawberry dolls would be made ever again, it was OK, because I HAD SOME IN MY STASH.

Until today.

Jocelyn’s friend Sophia has a birthday next week, and so I told Jocelyn I’d check and see if we had any Strawberry Shortcake horses in the present closet. (Sophia is having a “horses” themed party, so we thought we’d carry on the theme!) Much to my chagrin, my stash had somehow become quite depleted. Only 3 dolls and one pony left! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??? WOE IS MEEEEEE!!

I tell you, I couldn’t have felt more shocked than someone in a bombshelter with nuclear winter overhead suddenly realizing they were out of chocolate syrup to go with their canned milk for the next 30 years.

Where had they all gone? WHAT WOULD I DOOOOO????

So, we headed out to gymnastics this morning, with the plan to hit target on the way back to pick out a present for Sophia (what, you think I was going to DEPLETE what little was left of my stash? no way buster!), and also a boy present for our neighbor, who is also having a birthday. Somehow, we decided to stop at Toys R Us, instead. On a whim, I did a search on the TRU site for Strawberry Shortcake on my phone, and imagine my shock and surprise to find a WHOLE NEW LINE of Strawberry Shortcake items.

I immediately freaked out. So excited was I, to go and check out these new items in the Strawberry brand! IT WAS LIKE CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST! We looked everything over, Jocelyn purchased some Strawberry with her hard-saved allowance (Sophia is going to get my little ponies) and I have been all a-glow all day! Strawberries in the world again! Yay!

SO! Here’s the rundown of the new line!

We have the soft Strawberry dolls:

TRU link: $9.99

These look cute, and they have included my main criteria: brushable hair. Jocelyn isn’t that interested into brushing hair yet, but I know as my neighbor and I got older, the hair was the main attraction of all our dolls, not just Strawberry.

Then, we have the slightly smaller, slightly less expensive, mini-purse strawberries:

TRU link: $6.99

Always a hit, to have a doll, AND a small plastic purse a young girl can slip onto her wrist. Comes with brush. I’m not sure I like having so many different types of dolls though — that’s just the first two!

There are completely different dolls with the different playsets! WithOUT brushable hair, I might add:

roadster TRU link: $15.99

Cafe playset TRU link: $29.99

Berry Market TRU link: $10.99

Berry Stylish Mini Dressup TRU link: $10.99

And finally, there is an oversized big doll, that looks very cute:
TRU link: $19.99

And finally, this is the one my daughter bought:

she has been playing with it all day.

While I love that there is now, once again, strawberry shortcakes out there in the land, I am a bit conflicted on the changes. I’m not sure I like how she looks now — she just doesn’t seem the same. I will probably grow to love her though.

So there you go. All your strawberry shortcake updates, right here. I aim to please.

Go forth, and have a berry nice day!

-amy