Girls and boys

GIRLS

Princess Ginny resting after opening Christmas gifts

     I was a slime monster. 

     Zuzu's friend, a boy, was over. "I'm Spiderman!" he said, and started shooting webs out of his wrists.

     Zuzu also started shooting webs out of her wrists. 

     Friend: "You can't do that! You're Captain America!"

     Zuzu: blank stare.

     Me, helpfully: "That means you have a shield and you can throw it around."

     Zuzu, frowning: "I want to be Cinderella."

     Me: "What skills does Cinderella have to defeat the slime monster?"

     Zuzu: blank stare.

     Me: "How about you dance with the slime monster and then Spiderman sneaks up and finishes me off?"

     This received an enthusiastic response and we performed said scenario with gusto.

     After this Zuzu switched to playing Maid Marian from the Disney cartoon of Robin Hood. If you've watched it dozens of times like we have, you know that Maid Marian's fighting skills are: 1) shout for help, and 2) throw pies. So that worked pretty well.

This same friend came over when Zuzu and I had our foam stickers out, making gingerbread-house ornaments for Christmas. I handed him a brown house shape and told him to join the fun. A minute later he said "this is a gun shop!" and held up his house, covered in exclusively blue stickers. "I want to make a gun shop," Zuzu piped up immediately. She made a new house, copying his but with purple stickers. When Daddy came home that day, I told Zuzu to show daddy her ornament. "Oh, is it a gingerbread house?" he said sweetly. "It's a gun shop!" Zuzu replied, to Daddy's surprise and amusement. But later that night, she said she didn't want it to be a gun shop anymore. She added heart stickers. "It's a heart shop," she said.

I took Zuzu to a class where one week the kids were supposed to hit balloons in the air with foam paddles. The teacher had put a small toy inside each balloon so the balloons would fall straight down again after bouncing up. It was fascinating to watch the way the boys behaved during this activity vs. the girls.
     -The boys began immediately. The girls just stood there until their parents urged them to action.
     -The boys used both hands to perform the steps, holding out the balloon and swinging with the paddle. The girls' first idea was to toss the balloons into the air, ignoring the paddles. Their next idea was to let their parents handle the balloon toss while they swung the paddle.
    -The boys fully understood the concept of taking multiple swings at the balloon to try to keep it in the air. The girls absolutely would not do this. Once the balloon was up, they believed it had to come all the way back to the floor before repeating the process.

I gave Zuzu dress-up clothes for Christmas, because she loves dress-up right now (I don't think I ever in my entire childhood loved dress-up ... ever). I MEANT to include some career-oriented garb like doctor and chef coats. But the princess stuff was a priority, and that was as far as I got. Some high-heeled shoes (ugh, she is going to twist an ankle), a couple tiaras, and several princessy dresses. She picked one especially poofy pink dress and wore it all day long, giving us a coquettish smile as she played with the folds of the skirt, waiting for compliments. And then she had a complete meltdown at bedtime when I told her she couldn't wear the dress to bed. "Not even princesses wear dresses to bed!" I kept saying. "Princesses wear pajamas!"

She wore the dress the next day too, and the next day. One afternoon Daddy took her down to the basement to watch TV with him. They chose a documentary about bears. I saw them upstairs again partway through, a potty break I think, and Zuzu was going around on all fours pretending to be a bear. When they went back downstairs, Daddy told Zuzu it wouldn't be safe for her to walk downstairs in her poofy dress. So she happily allowed herself to be carried, resting her blond curly head on his shoulder, her arms around his neck. "I like snuggling with daddy bear," she said as they went down.

BOYS

We had a couple friends over to play the other day. One was a two-year-old boy who pretended to be a dragon and began roaring. Bear stared at him with eyes that said "I love you," and roared back.

I'm sure all babies and children love it when their parents get down on the floor to play with them. Zuzu does. But Bear loves it in a different way than Zuzu. Roughhousing with us is something that he requires, in order to be happy and to feel loved.

Bear is practicing ball-throwing with diligence right now. He throws balls enthusiastically straight down into the ground, and then looks up at us happily for approval. He also tends to shout with each throw.

The Christmas tree he can undecorate!

I saw this idea on Pinterest a couple years ago: a felt tree with felt ornaments. Bear is pretty good with our real Christmas tree. He usually doesn't go near it if no one else is around it (because he doesn't like to be alone so he just always goes where people are), so his examinations of the tree are almost always under my supervision and usually pretty nonthreatening. But I thought it would be fun to have a hands-on version for him. He loves to swipe off all the felt ornaments, and finally succeeded in making one stick to the tree! He did it three times in a row! He has also made multiple attempts to stick felt ornaments to the REAL tree, which of course doesn't work and is adorable to watch.

Naturally Zuzu is also allowed to play with it, but it's a bit young for her. I'm having fun imagining ways that this tree could be adapted to work for multiple ages. Add buttons with ornaments that can be buttoned on, number the ornaments and make it an advent tree, make a felt nativity, make felt ornaments together as a craft ...

The site where I got the idea uses a cone shape for the tree. I used 5 flat panels instead. I cut triangles out of thick cardboard and duct-taped them together. I stuffed the inside with paper, then taped on a cardboard base. Then I cut the tree shapes out of a huge sheet of green felt. There is enough felt at the bottom of each tree panel to fold under the bottom a couple inches. I sewed all the tree edges together and slid it over the cardboard. I glued the felt to the bottom.