I’ve had almost 1000 CPK pass through my hands since I started recording my collection. Some stayed, but most have found other homes with people who love them. This is Amber Casey, kid #91, adopted around 1997 from a flea market. She was my third Bean Butt Baby and came to me in a cute little yellow dress.
At this time, I was a teenager and knew next to nothing about Cabbage Patch Kids except what I could find on internet WebRings. It wasn’t much, but I soaked it all up like a sponge.
Over time I moved into my own place and continued collecting. Eventually, I just didn’t have enough room to keep all the dolls, so I started to adopt some out. Amber was amongst them, likely finding a new home sometime between 2012 and 2014.
Skip forward to 2022
My mother has always been an enabler for me. She often finds dolls at thrift stores or yard sales, and it’s wonderful! In March she sent a picture of yet another kid she’d found at a thrift store in town. She was dirty but a non-poxy BBB kid, so I was excited. It would be more than a month before I would finally get home to see her in detail.
I was surprised to see that the dress the doll was wearing was a VHTF Thailand BBB outfit. It was the same as one I had accidentally sold many years earlier, without knowing what I had. I never thought to own any of those outfits again, so this was very exciting.
NOTE: Thailand BBB outfits were only identified within the last year.
Later that day I was showing my sister a picture of the ‘outfit that got away’ and the replacement Mom had found. Our conversation went something like this:
Sister – “Isn’t that the same doll?”
Me – “Of course it’s not. I sold that doll like 10 years ago!”
Sister – “But look, it’s got the same mark on the head and stain on the dress. It’s smaller, but the stain is in the same spot. Where did Mom get it?”
Me – “At the local thrift store . . .”
Of course, she was right. I quickly looked up my records on the BBB with the rare outfit that I had adopted out, and it was the same doll, down to the “rust coloured mark” on her head.
“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours.
Kahlil Gibran
If they don’t, they never were.”
Apparently, I’ve been collecting so long I’m starting to adopt kids I’ve already adopted out! I think I’ll keep her this time. Welcome home, Amber Casey.
Update! – July 2022
A wonderful and skilled member of our Cabbie community has gifted Amber the remainder of her outfit! I knew it was almost impossible to replace those pieces and so did this collector. She too was missing a few BBB pieces she never expected to find, so she decided to knit them herself with wonderful results!
As a beautiful surprise, she offered to knit me the bonnet and pants I was missing for Amber’s outfit as she has an original she could copy. She did so and mailed it from the other side of the world! It arrived just when I needed a major pick-me-up.
I am happy to reintroduce the newly renamed (with her permission) Amber Zoe! She’s my little ray of sunshine!
