Our Different Drummer

Simon's not the only one who has been learning new things lately. A few weeks ago I thought it was about time we started teaching Gwen about the alphabet and the letter sounds. So, we bought her some foam letters and starting going through them, but it turns out she already knew. I don't know if she learned all the letter sounds from TV or from Simon, but she's pretty much up to speed on all the "short" letter sounds.

Next up we can start learning the "long" sounds and the difference between upper and lower case. Here are some recent pictures of Gwen being as adorable as always:


I don't know how it happened but Gwen is turning out to be quite the girly girl. She didn't get it from me, that's for sure, and Barb has always leaned towards the tom-boyish side of things. But, Gwen is a stereotypical girl if there ever was one.

It all started right around her 2nd birthday. We had a big friends & family birthday party for both kids (their birthdays are 3 weeks apart) and our friends Eric and Karen bought Gwen a "princess kit" which included silvery high-healed shoes, a tiara and a silvery plastic wand. Then someone else bought her a huge feather boa. For weeks after the party she paraded around the house wearing that outfit and saying (over and over again) "I'm a MAGICAL PRINCESS". We didn't even know she knew the word "princess" but there she was... hooked on a totally new lifestyle.

Nowadays she changes clothes many times a day and almost always dresses herself. If we try to pick out her clothes she usually gets mad at us so we just let her do it herself. In fact, she was dressing herself independently long before Simon was, and he's 3 years older.

And, she often uses her allowance money to save up for all sorts of princess related toys. A few weeks ago, much to the consternation of her mother's inner feminist, Gwen decided that the thing she wanted most in the world was a Barbie doll in a wedding dress.

When this all started we talked briefly about trying to prevent the accumulation of all the princess paraphernalia and the whole ideology in general, but we ruled that out pretty quickly. This is just who Gwen is. She glommed onto the whole princess thing in the same way that Simon became obsessed with stars and planets. Something just clicked inside her and resonated with her soul. She definitely walks to the beat of a different drummer around this house, but it's her drummer, damnit!

Finally, to wrap this post up, here's a picture of Gwen doing what princesses do best: suffer with a smile!

Oh, and for the record, she wasn't just pretending to wash the cupboards in that picture. Without us suggesting it she got a wet sponge and washed all the kitchen cupboards that she could reach. Sometimes princesses can be VERY helpful!

(As a socio-political aside: I used to assume that gender roles like those associated with stereotypical femininity or masculinity were entirely socially created. However, now that we have a child of each gender and we've had the chance to see them develop their own styles and interests, I've had to revise my views. There may be social elements to some of this stuff, but most of it sure seems to be innate. You could argue that Simon's interest in astronomy was encouraged by me... but nobody has been encouraging Gwen's obsession with all things princess.)