Yesterday morning, we headed to Cleveland Georgia. We’ve been to and through Cleveland a bunch, since its on our way to visit family, and the sister missionaries from our church live in Cleveland. We’d driven past the Babyland General Hospital twice before, but they were always closed (they close daily at 5pm). We planned ahead, and this morning was all about Cabbage Patch Kids …
There used to be a different Babyland, this new “plantation” looking place just opened in the past couple years. When I was a kid, it looked more like this:
I hope my mom can find MY babyland pictures … circa 1985, from when we lived in Atlanta! It was fun to think of taking my 3 girls there. For the record, I invited my son (13), and husband, but both of them were suddenly “VERY busy” with other things and couldn’t come along 😉
We pulled up to Babyland, and my moody 3 year old started to whine. She was scared of the large white cabbage statues with faces inside. My older two girls (9&11) thought it was funny, so posed for a picture with a “less creepy cabbage face”.
My 3 year old’s experience didn’t get much better as we went inside. I thought the vintage doll displays were cute, but the minute my 3 year old saw one of the giant, soft-faced nurse dolls, she freaked out. Like screaming and sobbing like someone was trying to kill her. It would have been funny if she wasn’t so panicked and entering hysteria while running blindly towards the door, tripping on stuff. The other guests and staff all just stared, looking concerned and horrified. Sorry Y’all … she’s three, ’nuff said.
When we got there, we were told that mother cabbage was getting close to delivery, but with SweetPea’s melt-down, we missed the “birth”, and a “nurse” assured us that there would be another one soon.
Basically, there’s cute picture opportunities in the entrance, then you walk through a little hallway, and can look in the windows of “hospital rooms” and see a variety of CPKs from over the years. Once you are through the hallway, it opens up to a very large open area of store, with “mother cabbage” at the back center, and dolls and toys all over the place. There are unpackaged dolls everywhere, which start at $59. They are cute, but I couldn’t afford to spend $200 that day, with my 3 girls. I told them if they wanted a special CPK, I would bring them back on a special mom-date to buy one at that point. I did tell them they could get something “smaller”, since I wasn’t wanting to spend more than about $80 this time, for all three of them.
We wandered the store, with me carrying SweetPea. Anytime I tried to set her down to walk, she would see something that made her panic, like the mechanically moving dolls/cabbage heads around the place. We wandered the whole place, and finally, by the very back, next to the exit, is a second of cheaper packaged dolls. They are similar to what you’d find at a toy store, but they are HERE at Babyland, so create that memory …
My oldest found HER doll very quickly.
Meet Baby Riley, a cute CPK who came with a blankie, binkie, and bottle. She had hair bows, a little romper, socks, and “OH MY GOSH MOM, SHE HAS A REAL DIAPER, JUST LITTLE”!
It took a bit longer for my 9 year old, who preferred a stuffed animal, but I told her that if she was going to buy something THERE, it needed to be cabbage-patch themed (mean mom!). She finally found one she liked, the same “package” as her sister, but with a little bald baby named “Sunday”
SweetPea almost didn’t get anything. She was so anxious and cranky that she was scared of everything. I’d show her a doll, and she would run away from it. She insisted that she wanted one, but wouldn’t touch any of them.
After a good 25 minutes, she found one she said she wanted. She even carried the box for 5 feet, before dropping it, and screaming. She thought its mouth was scary. I thought my patience level was getting scary.
It took another 10 minutes before she found “Annie”. Annie had beautiful almond eyes, pink packaging and outfit, and a blue boy’s birth certificate (Antony). I tried to show her other dolls, but THIS was her doll. So I asked if it should be named “Ann” or “Toni”, and was told “Annie”. Thank GOODNESS we could finally PAY for these “babies”. 
We paid, and asked how long it typically was for “mother cabbage to give birth”, since it had already been an hour. “No one knows, but I think she’s close to 6 leaves dilated?” We unpackaged the dolls, with the help of the sales clerk, her pair of scissors, and her knowledge of “open the box from the BOTTOM, its so much easier!” (It was!) By that point, “Mother Cabbage” was 8 leaves dilated, so we found a spot among the crowd, and sat ourselves down for the unique “Live-Cabbage” birth.
It was a silly experience, entertaining, and took about 10 minutes. After that, we were all DONE with the experience, and headed out. The whole experience was about an hour and a half.
My favorite part was when we were leaving, and the girls sat on the bench outside for a photo:
Overall, I think it was a successful memory-making experience! The girls ALL have toted their dolls around non-stop, and SweetPea takes her baby with her to take naps ❤
Its fun to compare my 1985 Cabbage Patch Kid with these ones my girls got! They also found a CPK doll SweetPea had lost interest in last year, and are giving love to “Princess Tutu” again.
{L-R Annie, Jean, Riley, Sunday, & Princess Tutu}
❤
Monkeys In My Minivan 