My play time as a Preschooler

     As a preschooler, my favorite play time was definitely playing house with my dolls, kiddie table and chairs, dishes and pots and pans.  My kiddie table and chairs were beautiful!  They were a soft maple color.  Each chair's back had a heart shape cut out of the wood with painting of arched swirls flaring out to each side from the bottom of the heart.  I also had a child size opened top china closet, which had a more orangy maple & varnish finish.  There were two shelves at the top with grooves to display the dishes upright.  The third shelf was very high and wide.  I had a real china, soft white tea set with dishes and wide cups and saucers.  They were decorated with tiny blue dots spraying into medium sized open roses in reddish orange and blue.
      Below the shelves were two drawers.  I kept baby doll bottles, child sized pink plastic silverware, and real Alcoa Aluminum Company cooking utensils in the drawers.  There were two doors that opened below the drawers.  Inside the doors were two large shelves.  I kept my pots and pans on the shelves.  They were replicas of the pot and pan set made at the Alcoa Aluminum Company, located along the Allegheny River in my home town and where many of my relatives worked.
      My favorite time of playing house was when my mom put my table, chairs, doll high chair & dishes outside in the area between our house and the big 12 foot wooden fence separating our property and the property next door.  There was an overhang from the balcony off of my parents bedroom, so rain wouldn't bother us.  I remember having some friends over and we had a tea party.
      In addtion, I had a eight drawer chest that matched the china closet.  They were both made by a man who was a friend of my extended family and customer at my paternal family's bar.  I kept all of my doll clothes and shoes in those drawers.  Now you know why I always told my mom, "All I ever want to be when I grow up is a Mommy!"