Hello all!  Today I would like to talk a little about gender stereotyping.  As some of you may remember, I have a little boy and a little girl, so this topic is definitely something that I think about quite a bit.  And by think about, I really mean worry about, as in "Am I projecting these gender-specific roles onto my children?".  Admittedly, my kids are still very young, so for the most part they don't have gender-specific interests yet, but it is something that I try to be very aware of, even now.  Now that's not to say that all toys that come into my home are gender neutral...far from it!  Little man has plenty of toys that are traditionally "all boy", like cars, trucks and superhero action figures.  Baby girl has "girly" toys like a tea set, a purse and pretend make-up.  The key difference is that they both play with all these toys...there have been many times when I've walked in on baby girl playing with her brother's cars and action figures or little man playing with his sister's toy picnic basket.  Some parents may be bothered by this, but it actually makes me quite happy.  As a mom, I try really hard to not force my kids into gender roles...not to the point that they have the same non-descript haircut and wardrobe so that people can't readily tell which one is a boy and which one is a girl (that's far too confusing...on several levels), but I'm not going to tell my son that he can't play "tea party" with his Nana just because he's a boy.  I say let him eat a teacake!  On the same note, I'm also not going to tell my daughter she can't go out and "help" Daddy if he's working on the car because she's a girl and little girls don't do that kind of thing...it just doesn't make sense to me.  I think part of it's because my parents didn't do that to me either...if I wanted to go help my dad build something in the garage, that was fine.  And if I wanted to help my mom bake or cook, that was fine too.  I guess what I'm really getting at is this: don't feel like you have to push your children to do (or NOT do) certain things just because society tells us that it's the "traditional" role of a boy or girl.  Let them decide what roles they want to take on in life...otherwise, you may miss out on your son becoming a world-class chef or your daughter becoming an expert mechanic. 

In other news, cloth diapering is going very well!  I made several more pocket style diapers for baby girl...this batch with snaps instead of velcro.  She figured out how to undo the velcro very quickly, so when she's in the velcro diapers I have to make sure she's wearing either bloomers or pants over them so she can't take them off.  So far, the snaps seem to have alleviated this problem, at least for now.  She seems to prefer the cloth, as do I...now, on the occasions I've put her in a disposable, she looks like she feels very uncomfortable in them and is more likely to fuss or try to get it off of her.  I think she's gotten used to the cloth and really doesn't like how the paper-y disposables feel against her skin.  Hopefully, this will also help her to potty train faster since she'll make the connection of that "gotta go" feeling and being wet, which is something that doesn't really happen in disposables.  Well, I guess that's about all for now...until next time!