ailbhe | 'Nea yike a girl

Until I put her in a dress this morning, Linnea was a boy. Then she was like a girl.

Sometimes, she's neither - Are you a girl? No! Are you a boy? No! What are you? I'm a 'Nea!

TV didn't go on until 5 pm today.

In useful news, we've found a drop-in creche willing to take her irregularly to cover medical appointments and so on. They're open 9:30-11:30 and 12:30-14:30. They're the only place in Reading doing occasional care during working hours, as far as we can make out - and even then they are actually associated with an adult education centre and only take non-students' children as a favour. We'll have to book in advance but it should be ok for a few tries anyway. Maybe I need to find a nursery to take her one morning a week and always schedule medical etc appointments for that day.

I'm sure I remember creches when I was younger. The Oracle shopping centre used to have one but it closed a while ago.

Need more friends with babies who are home during the week. The only reliable one I know, right now, has a 4-month-old who doesn't sleep, and a two-year-old who is in nursery two days a week. She's already on the brink of collapse. I'm looking for more.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They changed the rules about who was allowed to look after small children and such... I think that may have contributed to the decline in creche availability.

I wish Grace were more interested in being a Grace than in being a girl! She's gotten incredibly girly lately. It's cute at two, but she's going to turn into the Little Lady in the story about the tigers from _Free to Be You and Me_ if she doesn't loosen up a little.

Linnea referred to herself as Boy before she referred to herself as Nea. It's in deep, whatever it is. I suspect a lot of it is that strangers almost always called her a boy until she was walking confidently enough to wear dresses regularly - and of course she didn't wear dresses in winter.

Strangers have called her a boy when she's at the top of the climbing frame in a pink dress, mind you.

Little kids are weird about gender. One of the cutest things I ever saw was my niece Clarissa who, immediately after bring informed that the baby in Mama's tummy was going to be a boy, decided emphatically that all her girl dolls were now boy dolls.

Grace calls most things he or she more or less randomly, sometimes variably for the same creature in the same sentence. She calls herself a little girl because we call her one (it was the upgrade, after we ceased calling her a baby), but I wish she didn't act quite so traditionally girly. If she really wants to rebel against me when she's a teenager, the way to do it is to act like a 50's debutante, with lipstick that matches her nail polish and a refusal to go into the pool because it would mess up her hair.

I presume Jack knows he's a boy because we tell him so often what a lovely boy he is. But that may not mean a lot to him. He doesn't refer to himself as a boy, and only refers to his friends as boys or girls when he's telling us that one of them was silly at nursery. He used to be called a girl by strangers because of the blond curls.

I remember the first time he said to me "get off my dress, mummy!" and I realised that although we talk about tops and t-shirts and jumpers, the word he's internalised for all of them, for male and female, is 'dress'. I remind him what the other word is for whatever garment he's talking about and leave it at that. I'm happy that he hasn't learnt, yet, that there are some things that "can't" be worn, or done, by one sex or the other. Or that the sexes are different, for that matter. Although he's realised that I "no hab a willy".

Me telling Linnea what a good girl or clever girl or strong girl she was didn't make a dent. Strangers calling her a boy did.

She identifies other children as boys and girls based on clothes and hair, as far as I can tell.

I experimented with Jack yesterday. "Are you my lovely boy?" got exactly the same response (a big "yes") as "are you my lovely girl?". So just yet he's got no idea.

The identification thing starts very young, from what I can remember of "Child of our Time".

Some friends of mine take turns bathing with their small son, to make it easier to wash him. Once he realized his mom was missing something, and asked where her penis was. When she informed him she didn't have one, he looked at her in all seriousness and said "I'm sorry!"

Christopher: "that one's bwo-ten"
Me, abstractedly: "what's broken, sweetheart?"
him: "Mummy's penis is bwoten"
I'm afraid I laughed out loud...

Then I said "no, Mummy has other things instead but they're inside so you can't see them" - I have Strong Views about this ("I think it must mean Freud wished he had a bigger one, dear"...)

Sometimes, she's neither - Are you a girl? No! Are you a boy? No! What are you? I'm a 'Nea!

*heh*. my kind of person.

It does make me punch the air above my head, sometimes :)

tut, tut, no punching - it isn't ladylike!!!

'Nea yike a girl

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject