There comes a day in every dad’s life where we are faced with tough decisions.  Sometimes we deal with how to manage our finances; other times marital decisions, and even worse dealing with relatives.  However, none of these decisions compare to the day your youngest daughter asks you to play Barbies.

Yep, the dreaded question, “daddy will you play Barbies” always seems to come up when there’s a good sporting event on TV or you finally get some quite time to catch up on things around the house.  For me it’s hard to say no to my brown eyed, curly haired, four year old who seems to know exactly how to ask the question and do so just the right way.  She’ll be one heck of a salesperson or politician someday.

So, after trying to think of every excuse that would make sense to a four year old, she introduced me to her army of naked Barbies waiting to have a slumber party.  I find it interesting that no matter how many outfits and accessories I buy for her Barbies none of them can be found until I decide to wake up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and find those pointy, little princess crowns stuck in the bottom of my foot or better yet, the Barbie necklaces and bracelets my cat thinks are cat treats.  Let me tell you from experience both situations are never pretty.

I know standing in a room of naked Barbies can sound kind of creepy or to others one heck of an experience, but I have no idea how to play a naked Barbie slumber party and keep it clean enough for my four year old daughter.  So, in situations like these you have to go with what you know.  If I can’t watch my football game, then why not bring it to Barbie fantasy land?

I ended up with naked Barbie Jasmine and she was visiting her other naked Barbie princesses for a tea party.  Naked Barbie Jasmine came up with a great idea.  Instead of having a tea party at our slumber party why not have a football game party? And better yet instead of tea and crumpets we’ll have beer, wings and chili.  There’s nothing like preparing your daughter for the future!  Well, naked princess Jasmine was pretty convincing that day because we served up some of the best imaginary beer, wings and chili a naked Barbie can make.  Then afterwards we sunbathed naked on top of the three story Barbie Dream House with an elevator, because you know no house is complete without one.  Then we went for some exercise, my personal favorite, by going naked Barbie horseback riding.

At the end of the horse riding experience the attention span of my four year old was at its end and we went on to play something else prior to reaching the actual slumber party. It’s probably good that we didn’t, but something interesting developed from this experience.  Now, whenever I turn on a football game my brown-eyed little girl doesn’t ask me to play Barbies anymore.  She’ll run upstairs grab her Barbies line them up on the couch and ask me to make football treats like we did for pretend with the Barbies.  It’s great being a dad watching football with your daughter and her army of naked Barbies.  Football games will never be the same again and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

How to Play Barbie

1. Don’t be too macho or you’ll miss out on a great experience.
2. Play what you know as a man. You don’t have to get too girly, just throw in some guy things like football and she’ll have just as much fun.
3. Take advantage now and teach her simple things about what guys are like and what to watch out for when she is older—perhaps she’ll come to you when she’s fifteen and has questions.
4. Don’t forget to watch her play—it won’t be too long before she is running off with her friends to play.
5. Enjoy every minute and take every opportunity to play—even if it is Barbies.

Let us know what you think. How do you play with your children? Comments and questions welcomed.