A trip to Babyland

It was a harrowing journey. I saw both a teddy bear and a very large dead dog abandoned on the side of the road. I drove through a particularly rough hail storm and had to contend with some poorly marked roads. I survived these trials and tribulations to make it to a tourist attraction that has been calling my name since I moved back to Georgia: Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, Georgia. It’s where they make Cabbage Patch Kids.

If you’re not familiar with Cabbage Patch Kids, they are dolls, and no two are alike. They come with adoption papers and always have sorta freaky names. I got a Cabbage Patch Kid when I was 2 (the same birthday that I received “Berenstain Bears and the New Baby,” in preparation for the little brother that would arrive four weeks later). A much-loved doll, it even had an official portrait painted. One summer at the beach, after I fell asleep, someone would sneak into my room and take the doll, and my uncle would paint it. They’d put the doll back before I woke up and at the end of vacation I got a painting. That painting is still above my bed in North Carolina.

So in a fit of childhood nostalgia, I drove up to Babyland General Hospital to see some Cabbage Patch Kids. They’re really not joking about the hospital part. When you walk in, there’s this nurse waiting to greet you. Then you walk into the nursery, which is a bunch of cribs stuffed with Cabbage Patch Dolls, with many signs hung about to remind you that all of these dolls are available for adoption. These signs would eventually give me a tremendous guilt complex.

This nursery housed the original Cabbage Patch Kids--- hand-sewn and with all cloth faces. Mine was mass-produced by Toys-R-Us, most likely, so it had a plastic face, which I much preferred after seeing these all-cloth faces. It gave them a look of puckered turtles. I spent a few minutes in the room reading the Kids’ names. I thought I spied a Kid named “Teagan Commie,” but it turns out it was Cammie. Then I thought I saw a Kid named “Arlene Magic,” but it turns out it was Magie written with one g and a poorly-written C. In the last case of mistaken identity, I saw “Kinsey Belch,” but that was Belen just kinda scribbled weird. But what kind of name is Belen?

What kinds of names were any of these? I made a mental note to come back when I get pregnant to get some ideas for baby names (or before I adopt, because if there’s anything I learned yesterday, it was that there are lots and lots of adoptions that need to happen!). How else will I learn about names like Nevada, Dinorah or Jynna? I don’t even know how you pronounce the last one…if it’s like Gina, or Jenna, or something else. I even spotted a “Molly” spelled “Molley.” Interestingly, I heard lots of parents telling the kids, “That woman says we can change the name on the birth certificate,” so I don’t know why they go to such efforts to give the Cabbage Patch Kids weird names, because the owners seem to want to just change them.

Anyways, after the nursery, you walk into the preemie unit, which has little dolls in infant incubators so you can experience the stress and worry of a child being born too early. You reach into the incubators and touch their little hands and try not to freak out.

But you can’t get too sad because then you walk into the Cabbage Patch Kids school, where kids scamper on the playground and eat lunch in a cafeteria and sit at desks to learn from the Cabbage Patch Nurses. All of them with their arms outstretched, screaming in silent voices, “Love me!”

As I left the school room, I noticed a sign: “Doll is a four-letter word. We say ‘babies.’” So I apologize for all of the times I have already cursed in this entry.

After the school, there’s a little hallway where it’s always Christmas, and the dolls, I mean babies, hang out with Santa and sit contentedly under a fireplace. Then you head into another big room where the dolls are in various states of play. Some are sailing aboard the S.S. Cabbage, a ship that’s headed directly for a spot where some Kids are picnicking and climbing trees.

Here are some kids hanging out in the Cabbage Patch French Quarter:


In the center of this room is the titular cabbage patch, where you see Kids in various stages of development. Here they are with just their heads:


Here they are a little more developed:


Creepy, I thought. I had no idea how much creepier it was going to get.

I was halfway through the gift shop when the announcement came for everyone to report to the Cabbage Patch. Turns out Mother Cabbage was 10 cabbage leaves dilated and it was time to deliver. They had turned the lights out and these crystals at the base of the cabbage patch were glowing. As the Cabbage Patch Doctor explained to us, these were signs that we were about to have another Cabbage Patch Kid on our hands.

The Cabbage Patch Doctor was a kindly man, probably on the older side of middle-age but I wouldn’t want to call him old. I spent a lot of time wondering if he was a frustrated doctor or a frustrated actor as he went through the steps of preparing Mother Cabbage for delivery. He wiped down instruments and gave her shots and flicked a finger against one of those bags of things that have nutrients. I don’t know what they’re called but if you’ve seen a medical tv show you know what I’m talking about. As he did all this he explained the history of Cabbage Patch Kids and the guy who found Mother Cabbage and the Magical Crystal Tree in the forest and brought them to Babyland so that we could all buy the babies….I mean, “adopt” them and live happily ever after.

The delivery of a Cabbage Patch Kid is surprisingly technical. First Doctor Cabbage Patch did a sonogram and we found out we’re having a girl. Then he gave her a shot of “imagicillan,” and then an “easy-otomy” which consisted of cutting some cabbage leaves. Then, he pulled out a Cabbage Patch Doll! He asked some little kids in the audience for names, and one girl suggested “Lauren” and another suggested “Emerson,” but if I know anything about Babyland, they’ll spell that name “Loryn Emirsin.” The delivery complete, the doctor reminded us we could adopt little Lauren/Lauryn/Lorin/Loryn in the gift shop.

As I understand it, adopting at Babyland involves taking a pledge that you’ll take good care of the Kid, pacing around in a waiting room, and then buying all sorts of baby stuff for the Kid. And not really even interesting baby stuff either. I mean, you buy things like a scale so you can weigh the baby. You buy a layette set so you can bring the swaddled doll home. Of course you can buy the cool changes of clothes and a stage for when the Kid becomes a rock star, but a shocking amount of stuff is dedicated to the mundane.

Is this good or bad? I don’t know. I got a Cabbage Patch Kid the easy way, wrapped up in a box. What if I had had to go through the process of physically adopting one? Would I be more inclined to adopt kids now? Or would I have a misguided view of how easy the process is…throw $40 bucks on the counter and promise to take care of the kid? Are these kids more likely to understand responsibilities that include swaddling and ensuring proper rates of growth via constant weighing or are they more likely to become teenage mothers because they enjoy buying doll outfits?

I don’t have the answers to these questions. All I know is that the brochure says that Mother Cabbage gives birth regularly, which makes me think that maybe it’s time to put her on some cabbage birth control. The brochure also says that they’re building a new and improved Babyland that will open in the next year. So rest assured, this is not the last word on Babyland, because I will definitely be going back to see what extra rooms of crazy they can add.