Short Takes

In some ways, the Sept. 15 opening of the Newborn Nursery Doll Center at Creative Kids, an independent toy store in Columbia, S.C., could not have come at a better time. Still stunned by terrorist attacks on the United States four days prior, customers attempting to get their lives back to a semblance of normalcy found that they might create a happy memory by 'adopting' one of the Lee Middleton baby dolls at the center.

The day the dollmaker chose the store as one of its 40 U.S. licensed adoption centers, however, definitely was a happy one for owner Melodie Ingwersen. It was the very day she and her husband were leaving for Bulgaria to adopt their own daughter—a real baby.

Ingwersen applied for the adoption center license after learning about the concept at a toy show earlier this year. "Each time we heard what they had in mind, the scheme became more and more complicated," she recalls. "But looking at our floor plan, we decided we could meet the higher expectations by shifting storage items around."

Ingwersen admits business has been off to a slower start because of the September tragedies. "But one funny thing we are experiencing is the age groups adopting the babies range all the way from 5 to 70," she says. And the 70-year-olds are not adopting for grandchildren. "They want the dolls for themselves."

Perhaps, Ingwersen says, it is a Great Depression kind of thing. "This is an activity that is sweet, gentle and happy," she says.

Ingwersen is donating some of the center's sale proceeds to orphanages in Bulgaria.