Boys and Girls

We have a fairly traditional family with a working Dad and stay at home Mom-my husband is a guy's guy and I love to cook and sew (not so fond of the whole cleaning part of being a stay at home parent but that's life) so our children have had very little experience outside of the traditional gender roles but even so, I'm always amazed (and often amused) at how boyish our boy is and how girly our girl is. Let me make clear that we are not opposed to the boy playing with dolls or the girl playing with trucks or anything like that. In fact, when I was pregnant with the girl, one of our boy's favorite toys was his baby doll and his favorite color was pink. The phase only lasted a couple months and now I can't convince him to have anything pink but he was very tender and sweet with his baby doll and I believe he is as sweet as he is and loving towards his sister because of the play experience he had with his doll before our real baby girl joined us.

Both of our children are fearless...frighteningly so. The boy will attack anything or anyone he deems to be a threat. Anything. Or. Anyone. To the point of literally jumping on our pediatrician's back the first time she took our baby girl from me to do an exam while I was filling out paperwork. The girl on the other hand is fearless in another way. She is the single most determined child I have ever met. I've seen her try to physically throw herself out of the bathtub at six months old...launching over the side just to get out of the water because she didn't want to take a bath. We have locked her in her high chair when she wanted to be on the floor and moments later turned around to find her precariously hanging with her hands holding the kitchen table cloth and feet on top of her high chair tray with three feet of nothing between her and the tile kitchen floor. 

As brave as they both are, they're totally different. The boy can go in the backyard, find a stick and spend forty five minutes having a pirate adventure. Meanwhile, our girl would be (and has been) equally as content to sit in front of a mirror for the same amount of time just laughing and smiling at herself. Sure, part of that is her age but when I do her hair and put her in a pretty dress, she sits just a little bit taller and smiles just a little bit bigger. I love the differences in our kids and although I was (and am still) a little terrified of being the mother of a little girl, it's been rewarding to watch both of them grow and express themselves in their own ways.