Norah Eats Babies (and Stands Long Enough for a Picture)

It's weird. Boys and girls really DO seem to be hardwired to like certain types of toys more than others. Being a very metrosexual (following the "sensitive guy" meaning, not the fastidiously hygienic sense) fella, I've rather gone out of my way to try and avoid gender stereotypes or force gender roles onto our kids, choosing, instead, to let them find the toys that they identify with on their own (and avoiding pink with Norah, even though people keep buying the light red crap for her to wear!). To give them a fair shake, we've supplied both with ample toys that are generally associated with one gender or another (obviously Norah is WELL stocked with "boy" toys since Gabe's had two more years of collecting than she has had).

Gabe had an abundance of stuffed animals and a few "baby" dolls as well as TONS of play food and other cooking paraphernalia (by the way, what's up with that word? What's that "r" doing in the third syllable? I think someone just misspelled it in a dictionary and it stuck). He's played with the food off and on, and he has his few favorite stuffed animals that he sleeps with and occasionally snuggles with on the couch when he's watching a movie, but there's no denying that cars and trains and other things that "go" are by far his favorite toys--and he didn't have but one or two cars until his first birthday. There is no denying that he naturally gravitates towards the boy toys--especially considering he's already holding up his fingers and making laser gun noises, despite the fact that, to my knowledge, he's never seen anything with a laser of any sort in it yet.

And now Norah, despite having SO many cars and trucks and trains and what-not to play with easily within her grasp, seems to be gravitating towards the "girl" toys. She hasn't shown much interest in the general population of stuffed animals, yet, but she does seem to have a special inkling towards any of the baby dolls that we've got. She's even gotten to the point where she tries to carry them around with her from room to room.

Thus the name of this post.

Since she can't walk, she only has three ways to move an object along with her. She can throw it in front of her, scoot it along in front of her (or, sometimes, let it snag under her belly and drag it under her), or carry it in her mouth. The babies she usually carries in her mouth, like a very slow moving mama cat.

Mmmm. Baby hand.

She was carrying this baby by the hand, too, but dropped it while I ran to get the camera and picked it back up by its tag instead. Still, that tag is PART of a baby doll, so I imagine having it chomped on would hurt just as much as having a hand or foot bitten.

And then I also managed to get a picture of her standing up in front of the TV cabinet. She's actually progressing VERY rapidly--surprisingly rapidly, really. It hasn't even been a week since she pulled herself up for the first time and already she's starting to pull herself up on all sorts of furniture, she's taken a few steps in either direction to move towards something, and early today she climbed a stair. While we were vacuuming the lower level, we foolishly let her roam around for a bit and she found the un-gated stairway. Up to this point, when she's found it, she's spent most of her time trying to pinch her fingers in the gate, but this time she decided to climb. She made it up the first step when we saw her.

Gonna have to keep a close eye on this one. She's trouble.


And speaking of trouble, get a load of this:

He's even wearing Uncle James' old helmet. How appropriate!