My Max

My friend dropped by a few bags of clothes for us. She has boy/girl twins that will be 5 in January and I've benefited quite a bit from outgrown toys and clothes. I was sorting through and sorting...because I'm a tad anal and everything must be washed in my own machine with my own detergent before packing it away for a few years before it will likely get rewashed prior to wear. Now that N is with us, she sent a bunch of girl clothes, several pair of ballet shoes (how cute are they?) and some smashing butterfly rain boots. Anyway, Max saw these PJ's and just knew he wanted to wear them. Who am I to say no? They are very similar to several PJ's that his beloved CC had this summer and a robe of mine that he just loves. He was so happy and kept saying how comfortable he was. Notice his fireman rain boots, his nice warm slippers just weren't good enough to complete the outfit. I wasn't going to get out the camera, but he was just so cute and when I asked if I could take a few pictures of him I got a resounding YES and that I was supposed to tell him "not to smile". Gosh is he a (comfortable) cutie!


Yes, we also got his hair cut last weekend. By the barber. The man. Not the mommy one. The MAN one. There were lots of men there with their sons. He cuddled up to one for a bit and ran his car over him while I was distracted by the twins and called him back. He started calling me daddy. I responded "oh great, I get to be both mommy and daddy today" and answered him. That night, I asked him if it was hard to be there with all the daddies. To which he replied, "At Kevin's party, Nolan said I had a daddy and I told thim that I didn't and he didn't believe me. I said NO I DON'T". Sigh. Not the response I was expecting. So, we ran through why we don't have a daddy in our family. I told him he was absolutly right and asked if he wanted me to talk to Nolan about it to which he said, "yes" then started talking about something completely different.

Hospitals and doctors have been a big part of our life this year so it was no suprise Max wanted to be a doc for Halloween. A week or so ago, he told me he needed to go to the hospital to have surgery to become a girl. Not quite sure where that came from. Probably a boy at school. He is one of the youngest in his class and I'm not always impressed with some of the older boy influence. Max has been taking a little mermaid lunch box to school. We have the cars one we got in preperation for school, then Max found the mermade one and a bullwhinkle one in the cupbard that someone had given us or left. Every morning, I give him a choice. Most of the time, he chooses the mermaid one. I guess the comments one day last week got enough that one of the teachers mentioned it to me, the next day he wanted the car one. I talked to him about Strength of Body; Strength of Character; and Strength of Conviction and what they all meant and why they are important. I told him if he liked the mermaid one to forget what anyone else said, it was his life and his lunchbox and he could do what he wanted. He wasn't hurting anyone by bringing the mermaid one so it didn't matter what they said. He gets to bring the one he wants to bring and they get to bring what they want to bring. If that was taking the car one, fine. If that was taking the mermaid one, that was fine too. Since then, he has wanted the mermaid one.

I know that many would not agree, but I'm not going to ever stereo type him or any of my children or the clothes they wear or toys they play. He may get the pressure from society or others outside the home. He will never get it for me.

My Max, he is growing up so fast and such a contrast between all boy and liking the softer/finer things in life. Hey, I have PJ's made of this material and they ARE comfortable. Why should he not get to enjoy the feeling just because he's a boy? A lot of this "girl" stuff is nicer and more colorful and more fun.

Growing up is a lot of fun and it can be hard. Harder because of the choices his mommy made so that he doesn't have a daddy. Harder because he has a mommy who takes all of this exploration into the "girl" world in stride without freaking out or making him feel like it is wrong where as if there were a daddy in the picture he would likely get a different or more tempered message. To the whole needing to go to the hospital so he could become a girl, I asked him if he wanted to become a girl because they were nice and got to have a lot of nice stuff to which he said yes and moved on.

Me, I just want him to be happy and secure in himself. And, clearly, he was happy tonight. This mom stuff sure can be hard sometimes.