When Your Boy Tells You He's Really A Girl

A friend linked us to this last week:

What Happens When Your Son Tells You He's Really A Girl

Bean has been insisting more and more than when he grows up, he's going to be a "mommy" or, sometimes, a "boy-girl." He's also told us he want to have nine children (all boys), but I think he might change his mind about that when he's older. ;)

Post-Christmas Post

I am a day late. This is because Bean and my girlfriend are both off school, and have been since before Christmas, and since I have a rule about not being online when they're home, it means I haven't been online much at all since I got home on Friday. Couple that with a very busy three and a half days trying to catch up with all the people I haven't seen lately (friends, my parents, etc.), do all the household chores (cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, washing floors, laundry, trying to organise the books, CDs, and DVDs, dishes, cooking, etc.), get the dog walked, the dry cleaning delivered and picked up, antibiotics obtained for the cat, and helping to wrangle Bean, it has been a little crazy.

I have a longish post I want to write about procrastination and willpower, but it won't be today. Right now my girlfriend has taken Bean to Michaels and Bulk Barn, since the two of them haven't actually left the house in over a week (due first to illness and then to weather). They should be back in less than an hour, which means I have to type fast, and that longer post needs a lot of brainpower to put together.

Instead, have a Christmas recap!

I was up first, my girlfriend close behind me. I took a quick shower, which had the effect of getting me clean and waking Bean, who stumbled out of his room not five minutes later. Luckily my girlfriend was right there with the video camera to capture his reaction on film, but alas I am not able to post that here. You'll just have to take my word for it that it was very cute. ;)

There were a LOT of presents. I'm quite sure Bean will never be able to play with them all in his whole lifetime. He was very excited, though, which was so much fun.

Not pictured in this entry is the big hit of the day, which was a stroller for his doll, Malik Mollum (named by Bean himself, and woe betide you if you try to shorten the name to just 'Malik!'). Bean, true to himself, introduced us to Extreme Strollering. Within five minutes the stroller had gone round in increasingly fast circles around the open area in the dining room, been knocked over three times and been rammed into various walls and pieces of furniture. My girlfriend caught part of it on video as well, but missed the bit where he picked it up and swung it around his head.

There were much calmer parts to the morning, too. Bean was happy to get us to open the presents that were from him (he went with each of us to pick out presents for the other separately, so they would be a surprise), and while he hasn't quite completely worked out how gift-giving works, he seemed pleased that we were pleased. :)

Because my girlfriend is the most organised person EVER, we had a box for the wrapping paper set up immediately, along with a box for the smaller toys so they wouldn't get lost or misplaced. Bean did quite well in helping to keep things tidy and put the wrapping paper in the recycling box before unwrapping the next present.

Note the pink hair extension. It was a big hit, and he wore it all day long.

The toys included Barbie and a Barbie Volkswagen Beetle (pink, of course), some Monster High action figures (his latest discovery, thanks to CJ from "Raising My Rainbow"), as well as a metric buttload of train tracks. He's been building elaborate train tracks, but his vision outgrew the number of tracks he had. Now, with any luck, he'll be able to build to his heart's content.

After about an hour and a half, he got overwhelmed and started to wail. So we took a short break for some milk and for my girlfriend to make crockpot hot chocolate. It has got to be the richest hot chocolate I have ever had the delight of consuming. I could feel my pancreas giving up as I sipped. ;) 

Of course there were books, both English and French (Pinkalicious and Robert Munsch featured, as well as Llama Llama, a household favourite) and some fun clothes. Sparkly jeans and a striped hoodie, Monster High socks and sparkly peach leggings and a silver tutu. He wore his Christmas clothes right off after getting out of his PJs.

The immediate hit was the LeapPad 2. He's been obsessed with computers and games for as long as I can remember, and it's just not always possible to have him on our laps to play a game. I've been leaving the computer alone when I'm at home with the family, for one thing, and some of the games on our computers (if not most of them) really aren't age appropriate. Even if they're not scary or violent, they're just too advanced conceptually for him. This way he gets his own "puter" with games aimed at helping him learn. His earlier LeapFrog game (aka the "Puppy Game") was how he learned his letters to begin with.

As soon as we'd set it up he was going at it with the little stylus that came with it, happy as a clam.

My girlfriend's father arrived around 10:00 to join in the festivities. Bean and I know him as "Pake" which means "grandfather" in Frisian. He brought another turkey (because why have one turkey when you can have two?) and ham and more dessert than we knew what to do with.

He got to spend some quality time with Bean, and overall we all had a great time together while I was there.

The grown-ups also got quite spoiled at Christmas. Well, I did. Bean got me a sparkly green iPhone case, special gloves that work with smart phones, nail polish, and a dog-themed charm bracelet, among other things. My girlfriend, whom I frustrated to no end because I kept unknowingly buying things she'd already bought me for Christmas, got me coffee and the boxed set of Albert Campion DVDs, special strengthening nail polish, flavoured coffee syrups and a vacuum cleaner for the car, and a host of other exciting things that escape me right now because I'm not at home and my memory is absolute shit. Her father bought me a nifty thing that I can put on my windshield in winter to keep the snow and ice at bay, as well as a calendar and even moar coffee (all the k-cups!) and a k-cup carousel, which I've already set up here.

He and I surprised my girlfriend with a new Breville coffee maker, which I think she quite liked. There was also the Doctor Who scarf that I knitted for her, though I did not quite get it finished in time. It was lacking the tassels and the ends hadn't been woven in when I gifted it, which frustrated me a lot, but I think she liked it anyway. It's finished now, at least.

Alas, all good things come to an end, and around 13:30 I left to get back to work. I'd come in the night before specifically to be there for Christmas, but someone has to do my job, and that someone is me. Next year I might actually get time off for Christmas. You never know!

And that's the end of the Christmas post. Stay tuned for more in-depth stuff later.

Happy New Year, readers!

Pre-Christmas Post

Christmas this year is going to be yet another gift extravaganza for Bean. I am not entirely in agreement with the number of presents his mother likes to give him, as he's three and already has more toys than he knows what to do with, but it makes her really happy to give him all this stuff and I'm unwilling to take that away from her.

This year the focus has changed considerably with Bean's new taste for all things pink and purple and frilly and sparkly. He recently discovered Monster High (God help us all), and as I mentioned before in this blog he's become quite fond of Barbie.

The piece de resistance of this Christmas is the totally refurbished, custom-built Barbie house that his mother has spent days working on. It's huge. It's a good four and a half feet long, three feet high and a foot and a half deep. She already had the house (purchased over 20 years ago from the family who built it for their daughter), but it was tatty and faded and needed an overhaul. So she has been painting and wallpapering and tiling the house and spray-painting doll house furniture and buying little dollar store tap lights so that the house will be well-lit when he's playing with it. It looks phenomenal, to say the least, and I'm quite sure his head will explode when he sees it. The colour scheme will not only go well with Barbie, but is bright and funky enough that it will also work for all his new Monster High dolls (he's getting one for Christmas, but I have no doubt there will be many more in our future).

As for the rest, he's getting stuff we know he'll love. Play-doh, Playmobil sets, and lots and lots and LOTS of train tracks. Of late he's been building elaborate tracks that are truly a joy to look at, but the scope of his vision is too broad for the number of tracks he currently has. So his grandfather and I both bought him more straight tracks, curved tracks, connecting tracks, and I found a set that has a collapsing bridge so that he can stage a railway "akkident" if he wants. It's pretty cool. He's also getting a LaLaLoopsy doll, a doll stroller (for his favourite doll) and some doll clothes, as well as other assorted smaller items.

The big present I got him is a LeapPad. He's obsessed with computer games, and he can already name a bunch of different platforms on which they get played. ("No, Mama, it not on your 'puter, it on Kongwegate!") The trouble with this is that he constantly wants to play games, either on our computers or on our smartphones, and sometimes we simply don't want to, or don't have time to sit and supervise him. If he could sit still and do it, it wouldn't be so bad, but he consistently wants games that are adult-level and then insists on doing it himself ("No! Me know to do it!"), often pushing our hands away from the mouse or keyboard in spite of repeated admonitions not to do so. My solution has been to simply not allow him near my computer anymore (I have a laptop, and his shenanigans mean that he often risks damaging the computer, or at the very least hurting me when he tries to pull my hands away, because he tends to twist my fingers and/or wrist, and he's pretty strong for his age).

So getting him the LeapPad is the product of a bit of self-preservation as well as a good learning opportunity. LeapFrog has great products for children. He already has what he calls his "puppy game," which allowed him to learn his letters at a very early age, and which he adores. The pad itself has a number of features that you can find on any tablet, but it's geared toward kids his age, complete with games that are age-appropriate and with characters he'll recognise. It's my hope that he'll gravitate more toward that than toward the time-consuming and invasive pass-time that playing computer games with us has become. I know my girlfriend doesn't mind having him on her lap while she plays games, but I myself don't find that time particularly rewarding, for him or for me. I'd rather do something with him that doesn't involve a screen. Or, if it does, I'd rather watch a movie or TV show and talk to him about what's happening and what he thinks it means, rather than clicking away at a computer game.

I've also been spending far less time on the computer when I'm at home. I log in briefly in the evening to check email and see what's been going on, and sometimes I'll have it on during the day when no one else is home, but in those instances it's usually to listen to a podcast or watch a TV show while I knit. It's been interesting to see how I fare with limited access to social networking, and it's been instructive and enlightening to see that I have become more dependent than I would like on the gratification of instant feedback from Twitter in particular. So I'm determined to continue with this new habit of not being constantly online, and seeing where it takes me.

I will be posting again next Monday, hopefully with a Christmas recap and maybe with a longer post about my plans for the New Year. Possibly not all in the same post. ;)

Reconciling With Pink

Growing up, I identified as a tomboy. My best friend was a boy, and together we spent many joyous weekends and summers romping outside, wallowing in mud puddles, climbing trees and fences, playing soldiers and pirates and Star Trek (I was always Spock). We fenced and wrestled and rode our bikes in places bikes were never meant to go.

My mother, like many other mothers out there, wanted a little girl that she could dress up in pretty clothes and show off. It's true that I was a cute little thing, all big blue eyes and auburn curls, and I looked absolutely darling in the little outfits she got me. So it was understandably quite frustrating for her when I wanted to go outside and frolic with my friend in the nice new clothes she'd bought me. Once she bought me a pretty white dress with lace and frills and a lovely lace collar. I promptly went outside, tried to climb over a fence, and remained there, red-faced, shrieking and kicking, hanging by the skirt of the dress which had gotten caught on the post. My father had to come get me down, trying very hard not to laugh in the process.

After that, my mother dressed me in overalls for when I played outside.

The thing is, I wasn't what you might call a "typical" tomboy. I liked the pretty dresses my mother bought me. I enjoyed looking nice for parties, although because I was a very introverted child I generally found the parties overwhelming. I liked having ribbons in my hair, and I used to colour my fingernails with my markers so that I would have "nail polish" on. I didn't ardently desire to be a boy, except for those times when people would tell me I couldn't do or have something that was "only for boys."

My mother and I didn't truly need to compromise, the way I hear some mothers feel they have compromise with their tomboyish girls. Instead, my mother got to know me for who I was, and when I was little she never once told me I couldn't do something because I was a girl. (That tune changed when I was a teenager, but when I was a little girl? The words never crossed her lips.) My mother realised that it wasn't realistic to want me to be demure and "proper" all the time, and she worked with that. She wanted me to have fun, to be happy, and if that mean dressing me in overalls half the time or more, then so be it.

As I grew older, I found myself at odds with most girls my age. I didn't own any Barbies until I was 10, and someone gave me a couple for my birthday. I didn't really know how to "play Barbies," so my Barbies ended up going on adventures and climbing imaginary volcanoes made out of my bedclothes and a few judiciously placed chairs. There was no pink in my room (except for my bedspread, which my mother bought for me when I got my "big girl bed" and which I kept until I was nearly twenty), because pink was a "girl colour," and I knew I wasn't really like other girls. I was a girl in essence, but not especially on the surface. I had no interest in boys, which other girls seemed to develop starting as early as eight years old. I didn't understand the fascination with the New Kids on the Block (yes, that was the boy band that was incredibly popular when I was twelve, which should give you an idea of my age), and I thought makeup was pretty ridiculous.

I've never bothered to dissect my feelings about being a girl when I was young. I figure it's equal parts gender identity and internalised misogyny, with some other issues thrown in for good measure. We're constantly being told that being a woman is less desirable than being a man. Therefore anything that's associated with womanhood is automatically inferior. I refused for years to have anything to do with the colour pink. From the age of about seven to the age of twenty-five, actually, when a friend finally convinced me to buy a hot pink sleeveless top for an outfit, which turned out to look pretty damned fabulous on me.

Slowly I became more attuned to the underlying misogyny in so many of the messages I had internalised, and began to consciously examine my motivations for "disliking" things. I read a lot of articles that, for instance, pointed out how ridiculous it was to look down on romance novels. A genre of fiction written primarily by women for women? It must be inferior! Never mind that it has about the same percentage of good and bad writers as any other kind of fiction. But we've been brainwashed to think of those novels as being "trash."

I digress.

The point is that, in all these years, I've never been pushed so hard to review all my opinions about "girly" things than in the past few months since Bean has started expressing more and more interest in things that would be considered "girlish." Barbies? Check. Pink, purple and sparkly Check. Skirts and tights and Tinkerbell? Check. Check, check, check.

So what's my role as a parent? Or step-parent, in my case? All this stuff makes Bean happy, and since I want him to be a happy, well-adjusted kid, totally comfortable with who he is, then I need to make sure that my own hang-ups don't rub off on him. Just because I grew up thinking pink was undesirable doesn't mean I should pass that along to him. Much like my mother had to learn who I was and work with the side of me that loved climbing trees and playing with swords as well as the side of me that liked to pretend I was a princess (because I totally wanted to be a princess and have a pony of my very own), I am getting to know every side of Bean's personality.

Therefore I have come to reconcile myself entirely with pink in all its glorious shades and nuances. From bubble gum to Barbie to electric pink, I now embrace the colour with every ounce of my being. I may not have played Barbies when I was little, but if Bean wants me to play with him? Then I will happily join him on the floor with every single Barbie at my disposal to let him stretch his imagination as far as it will go.

The great thing about children is that they let you be a child again yourself every so often, and now I get the added joy of having a second childhood filled with pink and purple and sparkles and fairy wings. Every day I'm at home I can look forward to a new discovery.

(Yes, that's me when I was about Bean's age. It's the only photo I have at my disposal, but my mother has 24 albums' worth. :P)

The Colour Spectrum

This is the written-on-Sunday-posted-on-Monday edition.

Right now Bean is wearing a powder blue t-shirt with a picture of ballet slippers on it, pink leggings, powder blue socks, and a black cotton skirt. He's on the floor of the dining room assembling train tracks and yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!"

He's not actually hurt, though he has loudly claimed that he is. It's like sharing the room with a barking coyote. He's since moved on to staging what sounds like an elaborate railway accident.

If it weren't for the outfit, no one would think twice if they observed him right now. His behaviour is all "boy." And yet because he's wearing a skirt, I'm pretty sure that the average person might well look askance until someone explained it to them.

I am off work until Tuesday evening, and incredibly happy to be home. It's been a rough three weeks since I started this new job. A car accident for my girlfriend, a fried computer (hers, not mine), and the new commute for me have all contributed to a household filled with stress. So being home for four days is giving all of us a bit of a break.

Tomorrow is the birthday of Bean's grandfather, known as Pake ("Pah-kuh"), which is Frisian (or West Frisian) for "grandfather." So while my girlfriend went out to get birthday presents for him, Bean and I went for a long walk with Sergent, my seven year old husky-collie mix. Sergent is a sweetheart who loves Bean and lets him do pretty much whatever he wants.

We stopped to play in a nearby park. I use the term "park" loosely, because up until recently it was actually a fruit store. It burned down and they eventually tore down the building and laid down sod. So now there's a bit of grass growing, and there are about a dozen flower bins laid out, but that's about it. It was a good space for Bean to run around in, though, even though I wished it was better fenced-in than it was. Bean is... to put it politely... not a very good listener. He tends to run off and make us chase him because he thinks it's funny. Luckily, yesterday was a really good listening day, so we had a lot of fun running around the little park.

Bean was on his hands and knees in the dirt playing with acorns when one of our neighbours stopped by. She and I have chatted a few times, but she'd never met Bean before then. He was wearing his bright pink t-shirt that says "I love to dance!" on it, as well as his fuchsia skirt over his skinny jeans. The neighbour and I chatted for a few minutes until she tilted her head at me, clearly confused as to why I was using masculine pronouns to refer to Bean.

"Elle?" she prompted me, maybe thinking that French wasn't my first language (for the record: it is).

"Non, il," I confirmed. "C'est un garçon. Il aime les jupes." (He's a boy. He likes skirts.)

The thing is, Bean isn't all boy or all girl in terms of stereotypical likes and dislikes. Many of his behaviours are stereotypically "boy" (although I have known little girls to also behave this way). He's an incredibly high-energy kid. No one ever quite understands to the extent to which I mean "high energy" until they meet Bean. His mother and I often get reactions of "Oh, yes, my child is go-go-go too!" By which they mean that sometimes their kid gets hyper and runs around. Bean never stops moving, ever. Not when he's watching TV, not when he's making a puzzle. He's rarely quiet. The rest of the time he's loud. The volume ranges from we-have-to-talk-louder-to-make-ourselves-heard-during-normal-conversation all the way to ear-splitting shrieking that makes all our pets run for cover.

He also likes trains and cars and digging in the dirt. He just also likes pink and purple and sparkly things, princesses and fairies and makeup. It's very, very rare that he will sit and "play quietly" with any of his toys, whether it's his trains or his Barbies. In "Raising My Rainbow" Lori Duron said that they like to think of C.J. as a rainbow rather than a muddle of colours. If we think of the gender thing as a colour spectrum, Bean isn't a rainbow so much as he's kind of like a tie-dye t-shirt. Colourful and chaotic. We don't know if he'll continue to be gender nonconforming when he gets older. The trend seems to be 'yes' for now, but it's hard to tell. He's three and a half. He may decide that he's bored with skirts when he's five, or he might not. Either way, we're going to let him express himself the way he wants, and hopefully he won't want to censor himself for fear of being teased or bullied.

So the neighbour and I had a good chat about how kids should be allowed to like whatever they like. She was a little more hesitant when I brought the conversation around to grown men being allowed to like supposedly feminine things only, but she kept on gamely when I went into my "Feminism is also for men!" speech.

At the end she waved, Bean politely said goodbye, and she went on her way. No fuss, no muss.

For the most part, we haven't received the sort of censure that I've read about with other people whose kids don't fit the norm. It helps that, for better or for worse, my girlfriend and I are part of the LGBT community here. We may not be very active, but we know a lot of queer-identified people. All of our friends are feminists and believe in the equality of the genders. They've been teaching their daughters that it's they can want whatever they want out of life, and they understand the importance of teaching the same thing to our sons. Bean is also still young, and we are blessed that his daycare providers are supportive of his clothing choices and don't believe that ballet is only for girls.

In short, love the colours you love. The spectrum is literally just a social construct.

Here be brightly coloured dragons...

Post #1.

I'm not sure what kind of blog this will turn out to be. I've blogged before, mostly on LiveJournal, but mostly as a kind of personal journal with a small audience. This will, I think, be rather different. I'm starting late, but I see it a little as a way to chronicle the biggest change(s) in my life and how that goes.

To sum up what's happened since last April: my girlfriend of a year (we've known each other for ten years but only been dating for one) moved in with her three-year-old son, hereafter known as Bean. (I have yet to figure out a nickname for my girlfriend. Stay tuned. :P) I work for the RCMP as a telecoms operator, which means shift work, and recently I got transferred to a different city nearby. So for now I'm commuting back and forth for 4-5 days at a time between shifts.

So I've dived headfirst into being the "co-parent" (as my girlfriend puts it), of an extremely high-energy three-and-a-half-year-old boy, who also happens to be gender nonconforming. Or maybe more gender creative—that term seems to fit him better. Bean has two speed settings: fast and asleep; he also has two volume settings: loud and asleep. He loves trains and Iron Man and playing with rocks. He also loves princesses and fairies and pink and purple clothes and all things sparkly. He wears skirts and tights and hair clips as well as his regular "boy" clothes and plays with Barbies and throws rocks in the water and digs in the dirt. Basically, he's a kid.

I don't know if anyone will read this. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with posting. I don't know what I'm going to put in here, except for the fact that it's going to be about my own experience with all of this. I'm not an expert, and goodness knows I am riddled with my own fair share of neuroses. Up until now, I've been terrible at relationships and not all that good with small children. I've had plenty of other things happen in my life that I will likely end up discussing here as well, because they are important to who I am.

In short, this is uncharted territory for me. Here be brightly coloured, gender nonconforming dragons. ;)

Also, eventually I hope to clean up the look of this blog. I am terrible with all things html and other coding, so bear with me while I muddle my way through the beginnings of this.