Raising Boys - Raising Girls

Our political world would have us believe there is no difference between a boy and a girl. One can choose which you want to be. As if our biology books should be tossed out a window. Sometimes I wonder if they realize how ridiculous they sound.

All that aside, though, it suddenly dawned on me last week that is very obvious that Ethan has a sister. I don’t mean he’s girly. Far from it. He loves cars, trucks, motorcycles, trains and planes…especially when he causes them to crash into one another. He mimics the sounds he hears around all day long. He loves to wear his bath towel like a cape and run around the house. He picks up every stick he can find, swinging it about like a sword. And he would far prefer to throw his stuffed animals around than play house with them. Simply put, he’s 100% boy. However, he can name almost all the Disney princesses…

Now Emry is not a princessy sort of girl exactly. She likes to wear sparking things and pretty dresses, but not every day or all the time. She doesn’t play princess except to recreate the movies she has seen with her Disney Princess Little People, but more likely you will find Cinderella and Rapunzel going camping in the Little People camper than dancing in their castle. But she does watch Beauty and the Beast, Frozen, Cinderella and Tangled often enough. And since Ethan is always around…

Honestly, I think he likes Cinderella because he finds her name fun to say. But he is nearly obsessed with Anna. He points her out anytime there’s a picture of her somewhere and flipped to the one page with her on it in an Olaf board book we got from the library recently. Don’t ask me why. He just likes her.

And so, yes, Ethan has a sister. And Ed has decided he needs to be educated in makes and models of cars. Something I don’t think you actually have to teach a boy. Certainly neither of my brothers sat about with car magazines or books studying up on the things and yet they could point them out by make, model and Honestly, I think he likes Cinderella because he finds her name fun to say. But he is nearly obsessed with Anna. He points her out anytime there’s a picture of her somewhere and flipped to the one page with her on it in an Olaf board book we got from the library recently. Don’t ask me why. He just likes her.

And so, yes, Ethan has a sister. And Ed has decided he needs to be educated in makes and models of cars. Something I don’t think you actually have to teach a boy. Certainly neither of my brothers sat about with car magazines or books studying up on the things and yet they could point them out by make, model and year as if they were written in bold letters across the back of them. (Okay, so the make and model kind of are, but the year? I wasted precious hours of my life trying to figure out where the years are printed on a car that my brothers would know that with merely a glimpse. Of course, they’re not…so how do they know?!?!?) And since Ed actually does sit about with his car magazines, I’m pretty sure there is great hope for Ethan…just as soon as he figures out that Impala is almost as fun to say as Cinderella.