They're back! And not a moment too soon
Did my 60 minutes today to The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Ah, how I missed Jon and Steven. The time flew by tonight and I worked up a great sweat. I'm ready for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Bobbin's first day at "Big Girl Preschool". I bought her a new sparkly Cinderella Princess Backpack to commemorate the occasion. I filled it with a new set of markers (her old ones were used up, dried out, or both), a new doodle pad, and some new pastel crayons. All of which, backpack included, were in the clearance aisle at Target. I love the "after back to school" sales :-)
She's apprehensive. Understandably so. She alternates between wanting to go to her "wegular class" and wanting to go to "big girl preschool" from minute to minute. The backpack was a hit though.
She's getting so big so fast. We were in Fred Meyer the other day, perusing the toy aisles while I waited for my prescription to be filled, when Bobbin saw the bicycle rack from a distance and made a beeline over to a 12" pink, tasselled, bike with training wheels. A real honest-to-goodness big girl bike, with bicycle chain and backpedal brakes. I took it off the shelf to let her check it out. She climbed on and put her feet on the pedals. And proceeded to ride all the way down to the end of the aisle. The backpedal braking motion kinda threw her for a loop, but she eventually got it.
A big girl bike. Is it possible? She's only just turned 3. We did add it to the top of the Santa list though. But it has to be pink.
She's also started creating a distinction in her mind of "girl things" and "boy things". I'm not sure where this comes from. She has lots of what some might think of as "boy" things that she loves to play with - her Elmo toolbench; her Thomas the Train set; her collection of matchbox cars and trucks; her airplanes. And her imagination has her traveling to the moon, playing a running back in football, and driving dump trucks on a regular basis. Of course, she'll often do so while dressed in a sparkly pink dress and sporting a tiara and some of my lipstick. But there's no rule that states a princess can't be a back hoe operator or linebacker or vice versa. Ok, maybe for the time being it's best to remain a closet princess if you're a linebacker :-)
Anyway, we were flipping through the latest fisher-price catalog this evening. The first section, with the Little People stuff, she did not identify as being associated with a particular gender. Next came the jeeps and cars and trucks. Of course, all of the photos showed little boys playing with these toys. Bobbin pointed and said "this is the boy section". I replied with "Well, there are boys in the pictures, but girls play with these toys too" and reminded her that she loved playing with her cars and with her trains. The pages after this were pink and filled with dolls and frills and pretend cookware and princess costumes and dress up jewelry. Bobbin pointed and said, authoritatively, "these things are just for girls". I asked her if she saw boys playing with baby dolls at school, or pretended to cook in the play kitchen and dress up in the play clothes and she said yes. So I pointed out that even though these pictures only had girls in them, boys could still play with all these toys too. And aren't Daddy and Grandpa Jerry two of the best cooks you know? I decided it best to not get into the stereotyped interpretations that many would make upon seeing a little boy in a princess dress and rhinestone earrings carrying a pink silk purse :-). And granted, the boys at school are often throwing the baby dolls against the wall or banging the toy frying pans on the bookcase when they're playing. But all of that's neither here nor there.
Still, it's interesting to see that she's picking up on some of the stereotypes that remain common in advertising.
Tomorrow should be interesting. I have no idea how this is going to go. I'm mentally prepared for anything. I hope that her natural curiosity takes over as soon as we enter the classroom. I know that she'll spend the first little while observing quietly and taking it all in. We'll see what happens after that :-)
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