Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Gender Blind

Recently, Mirabelle approved various short mergers between her hair and bow clips.  To facilitate these unions, I've been making a concerted effort to offer her a bow every morning, show her herself wearing it in a mirror, and praise her on how pretty it looks.

Unfortunately, Finn is usually standing next to us watching and wants in on the 'fun'.  My instinctive response is to give him a bow and let the public school system sort it all out later (that's why teachers get paid the big bucks, right--wait . . . ).

Instead, I called my babies' Daddy to seek his counsel on this gender issue.  After all, he is the one who taught them how to grab stuffed animals by the mouth and shake them from side to side, lick their plates clean, and throw their hands up in the air while running around the house screaming as a form of interpretive dance.

After rattling through our standard game of 'It Could Be Worse' with favorites like:  'wait till he wants his fingernails painted' or 'wait till he wants his ears pierced'; Dave suggested I get Finn some hats--or better yet, cool sweatbands (with matching armbands of course).  Not such bad advice from a guy who thinks all children should have 4:30p bedtimes.

So hats for Finn and bows for Belle.  Now it's time to search 'The Internets' for some nifty--yet manly, headgear for my little boy who is gender blind.

3 comments:

Zoo Keeper said...

Or maybe you have a "princess boy". I just read an article about it. Little boys that like to dress up as princesses. Of course the opposite could be true - remember? we called them "tomboys" ; ) - although much more socially accpeted gender bending.

Hey - my husband likes wearing my underwear on his head (around the house) when he does laundry... (or my bras as earmuffs. I don't understand it either. I call it his very "unique" sense of humor...) so I suspose you never know what you're going to get with a boy....

so yeah - be happy it's a bow.

Zoo Keeper said...

Ok - I see no one else commented on this - not even you, Em. So I guess the "princess boy" was not a hit. Oh well...


ha! word verf is "framp" maybe it's a sign...

emily said...

I never know how to reply to comments so that you get notified . . . do I just leave a comment myself?

Anyway, you're right about 'princess boy'. I'm going to let him do it at home only and solely for 'pretend play/dress up time'.

You also got me thinking about why I'm more nervous about Finn dressing up in girl clothes than I am about Belle wearing cowboy outfits. I have no idea why, but I am . . .