Greetings from my bed!

With the holidays coming up and the craziness that is my life I decided to go Christmas shopping today. We are having a big family Christmas this year. My husbands whole family is coming up and staying with us this year and we are hosting Christmas morning. I don’t quite remember agreeing to this, but I’m up for the challenge! The bulk of my shopping is already taken care of ( thank you amazon) but I still had a few more stocking stuffer things I needed to get so I decided to make a day of it and go to the City Target with the little missy down town. I love this time of year, it’s my second favorite behind the fourth of July but I’ve always been more of a summer girl… any way I love the craziness of it and the non stop moving the way Nordstrom decorates and the Macy star. It really is a magical time of year. Baby girl is still absolutely taken with santa, and takes whole thing very seriously. It’s honestly kinda funny to watch her think so long about making good choices and it’s good time as a parent to check in and make sure my kid has good morals and what not. Any way we were in down town City Target and I see the new Jurassic World Lego set. I mean my kids has not shut up about this Lego set since she saw it at her friend Ian’s house. I quickly distract her, I grab the toy but it in my cart, cover it with the new throw blanket I was getting and called my day a major success.

We go to check out and I tell baby girl to go play in the children’s center while mommy checks out. While the cashier is checking me out she comments on the lego set saying her son loved this set. I tell her it’s a Christmas surprise for my girl. She looks at me and smiles and say that she wishes more parents would encourage their kids to play with toys that aren’t necessarily for them. Thats when I had an epiphany. The target cashier lady was totally right! It’s not my kids fondness for more masculine toys that is the crazy part it’s the fact that we as parents don’t offer both toy options. Think about it! When you discover that your friend is having a baby girl what do you buy them- other then super cute baby cloths- you buy them toys. And where do you go to buy toys? Target, Walmart, toy-R-us, etc. Each store has a very distinct section for boy toys and girl toys. Why is that? We are assuming the because it is a girl she will like pink and want to become a nurse and that giving her bff’s manicures will be the best thing ever. And same goes for guys. We buy baby boys toy truck and dinosaurs and super intense things. Why do we assume personalities and interests before the kid can even say their name?

We get home form City Target and baby girl goes to her room. I sit in front of my computer and look up “children’s marking” and I am bombarded with article after article about how bad it is that we teach our kids so young that they should like a certain thing. I go down the rabbit whole of crazy statistics and research until it’s time to make dinner.

Every day I am reminded how lucky I am for my killer kid. But today I released that she is the strongest person I know. She didn’t succumb to the barbie dolls and cooking sets people bought her for birthday presents. She chose to play with what she liked no matter what her girl friends were playing with. I wanna be more like her.

xoxo,

Isabelle