Smashing gender stereotypes

At Costco this weekend, we needed to pick up some pull-ups for our not-yet-dry-at-night toddler.

Iver pointed to the "pink ones" with Minnie Mouse and the "lady doctor" (I am not familiar with Doc McStuffins but she's on there) and said "I want those ones."

I hesitated.

I wondered why he was drawn to that box, instead of the blue-boxed Cars/Simba "boy" pull-ups right next to it (which he currently uses).

I thought extremely carefully before I opened my mouth, contemplating the important-seeming message I wanted to send to my very young, impressionable, three-year-old son.

"Are you sure you will wear these?" I asked (Iver is known to be a bit impulsive, and I was really not concerned about his choice of color or design but rather about having a bulk quantity of 124 unused pull-ups if he changed his mind later). "They may be pink inside."

"I'm sure," he replied.

So we bought them.

I am proud to have a son who loves building towers and knocking them down, playing with his tool-bench, balls, riding bikes, and games of chase, but also who adores reading, singing, music, and art. He would be welcome to play with dolls and any other toy he chooses, without judgment about whether it would be "gender appropriate."

I am proud to have a son who is spirited, passionate, who shows emotion easily, and who is loving and cuddly and sweet, and to whom I will never say "boys don't cry" nor "boys don't volunteer 'I love yous'."

I am proud to have a son who knows that women can be doctors. Or the president. And that dads can do the laundry, cook, pack lunches, and take care of kids just as well as mommies can.

And I vow to raise boys who live and contribute to a world in which it is perfectly ok for them to choose and wear pink pull-ups.

Clean tushies in these parts

I have a houseful of boys.  As you can imagine, potty talk among two- and five-year-olds is pretty common and I try not to react too much when they're joking about it.  I will write about it, though---this post is all about pottying, so skip it if this stuff is gross to you.

The bidet
During the start of the COVID crisis and when people were freaking out about toilet paper, bidets seemed to be becoming a popular investment. I had actually never used on before in my life, although from what I've seen (they are popular across Asia), read, and learned (Stuff You Should Know has a great recent episode on bidets), they are very eco-friendly and better at getting the job done than TP.  This week (despite having plenty of toilet paper in stock), Kelvin decided that it was time for us to get one. He chose a very basic model from Tushy, without bells/whistles or heated water or a seat, and installed it yesterday. We've all (except Niall) tried it out and it works well!  You do have to "pat dry" (we have plenty of cloth prefold diapers we can use), but I think it is a great investment, both from an environmental and hygiene perspective (I joke that the piano was my quarantine toy, and this is Kelvin's!).

Butt-wiping in kids
Iver is five and a half and possibly attending public kindergarten this year (which is still up in the air per our school district for another couple of weeks after a very inconclusive board meeting this week).  He can wipe his own butt and does an okay job (he's taken the "first pass" for many months), but doesn't like to do the task and asks one of us (usually me ["MOOOOOOMM!!"']) to wipe after him (he's very regular, going in the morning and sometimes after dinner, so having to wipe when not at home with us is a rare thing). I was pretty sure that busy and underpaid kindergarten public school teachers didn't have time to wipe their students' butts if they poop at school, so I told Iver that I was drawing the line, and that he'd be on his own this August (August 1st, or tomorrow, to be exact), although I polled a Facebook mom group to be sure that this was developmentally/age- appropriate and not too mean (I got some many great replies, including suggesting "practicing" with peanut butter in a bowl [although Iver is probably still allergic so we'd have to use an alternative nut butter) or with balloons [check out this awesome video with instruction targeting Asian kids who appear far younger than five], and reassurance that I should "let him fly"). We just got the bidet set up (which Iver knew was on its way) and smart kid he is, he said, "I won't have to wipe-- I'll just use the bidet! (Obviously, most places in the US don't have one, so the skill of wiping is still necessary!).

Potty training our youngest
Aah, I can't wait until the day that diapers and pull-ups are behind us! Iver potty trained quite easily around age two, although he wore nighttime pull-ups for another two years. Niall (almost two-and-a-half) has been a bit more challenging during the day, despite being in underwear for several months. Sometimes (even recently), he'll have multiple pee (and occasional poop) accidents during the day, requiring more laundry than I'd like (but still less than multiple loads of cloth diaper laundry), but I think we've turned a corner and they are rare now (we also bring a tiny Baby Bjorn potty in the car when we're out anywhere). He's even woken up dry from overnight a handful of times, which is really encouraging and one day had escaped his crib and was crying at the door to his room at 5 a.m. that he had to go pee. While life with two kids has certainly been getting easier as they get older and more independent, I think we'll have a more marked leap in adult satisfaction and peace when diapers are a thing of the past!

Here's to hoping for very clean tushies all around here going forward!

f-I-V-E-R!

 

It's hard to believe that we now have a FIVE-YEAR-OLD!!!
Five feels so grown up, and puts us officially out of toddlerhood (I think?) with our oldest.
We became parents on the winter solstice half a decade ago!


Iver will finish up this school year in Pre-K and is slated to start Kindergarten (school TBD) in the fall.
He weighs around 35 pounds, and wears 4T shirts and ~5T bottoms.
He is still quite the spunky, spirited child.
He is energetic, intense, passionate (explosive at times), and persistent (although we have been having fewer power struggles as he gets older, and we have learned to better manage better his strong feelings and need for control in decision-making).
He is quite the negotiator, and has great brainstorming ideas to get what he wants (we are working on his asking respectfully rather than whining and shouting).
He is analytical and has a photographic memory (he can remember what he wore and on what weekday things were, years in the past!)
He loves board games and can outsmart us adults in UNO, Tic-tac-toe, and others.
He has quite an aptitude for math, doing several-column math with "regrouping" (carrying over), and double-digit addition and subtraction and some multiplication in his head.
He loves books, and is reading short and frequently-visualized words.
He loves dealing with time (he has a beloved Frozen wristwatch) and can calculate "how many minutes until..." in his head.
He loves art, drawing, and writing birthday and Christmas cards.
He did a little acting class this fall and loves going to musical theater shows as a member of the audience (acting in them may or may not be in his future, but certainly a few years off).
He loves routines and rules (and will call us out if we're one minute later than we said picking him up), and is somewhat slow-to-adapt to new settings and people, but has formed very secure attachments to several caregivers/teachers, friends, and family members.
He loves dressing up at home (mainly as Disney princesses, appropriating my tops as dresses and a hooded towel as "hair").
He chooses his own school clothes, and is partial to brightly colored tops and leggings, and one black and neon green hoodie sweater. He loves flip flops and sandals.
He loves to listen to and sing along to songs (mostly Disney, especially Frozen) in the car.
He likes to help in the kitchen and bake with me (even though I don't like to bake nor cook!).
He loves parks, bounce houses, monkey bars, climbing, and active play.
He can ride a two-wheeler without training wheels.
He's incredibly sensitive and will tear up at things like papa forgetting to play"chase" before school when he said he would.
He is sensitive to textures, and bothered by tags and certain socks if they don't feel just right.
He is an okay eater but loves to snack. His favorite breakfast foods are raisin bread, yogurt, cereal, and fruit. For lunch, he is partial to Hormel pepperoni slices, spicy sausages, and mac-and-cheese. His favorite veggies are peas, beans, broccoli, and carrots. He definitely has a sweet tooth (we allow dessert on two nights of the week, which he gets to pick). He loves to have an after-dinner snack if he eats a reasonable amount of normal entree food.
He definitely has severe "FOMO" (fear of missing out) and never wants to sleep ("I just lie there with my eyes closed!") or admit to being tired.  Nevertheless, he sleeps from about 8:15 pm until about 6:15 or 6:30 a.m. without a nap (recently, we've had him sleeping in the guest bedroom as Niall wakes up, and sometimes wakes him up, sooner). He's been letting us check on him "whenever we want" after he's in bed (instead of previously five-minute intervals, which became problematic as soon as he could read and understand time because we'd try to drag the intervals out and then would get chastised). He ditched his night-time pull-ups at around four-and-a-half and we're working on him wiping his own bottom, which we've told him is a requirement for KG (even though it's probably not).
He likes bubble baths and end-of-day showers with Papa.

(Niall also turned 22 months last week. We took some photos of the boys together. I think you can tell from the first photo which child is the people-pleaser and which one has his own ideas about how/why things are done...)

 

Here's one Disney princess drawing on his doodle pad.

Iver: Guess who it is, Mom!

Me: I don't know. Ariel? Rapunzel?

Iver: NO!!! It's Aurora! 

Me: Aurora? What's that in her hand?

Iver: It's coffee. She was very sleepy.

"Icy crown" of bubbles

Making hot cocoa at school

Sweet treat- date with Papa

me with the birthday boy

Brotherly breakfast love

 

Bedtime reading with Papa

These growing boys are special!

Here's what Iver was doing at 

ONE

TWO

THREE
FOUR

He has opened a few gifts and we'll have a party to celebrate later-- pictures likely to follow.

Dreams of Disney Princesses

 

Iver has become a fan of all things related to Disney Princesses.  We have borrowed several classics (Frozen, Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast, but also Lion King and Aladdin) from the local library, and consequently, he wants to dress up (and aspire to be) each of the female leads. 

Kat got him this mermaid tail blanket

At home, his favorite thing to wear is his "rainbow dress" (a t-shirt of Kelvin's that he tie-dyed at school), but he loves wearing my tunics as dresses, and was thrilled to play in a mermaid skirt at a friend's house a couple of weeks back. He likes to wear leggings for pants all days of the week. He draws himself in pictures with ponytails or braids but he's fine having his hair short (cut last week). He loves active games, running, chase, and climbing, but also music, art, and all things pink, purple, or "rainbow"-colored (see previous post in 2018 about him as a three-year-old selecting pink and purple pull-ups and us being okay with it).

K and I are not totally sure if this dress-up inclination is just a phase or something more significant (are four-year-olds generally sure of their gender identity?). Iver has so many wonderful female role models (family, colleagues, teachers) that we've heard him say "I want to be a girl," but he doesn't necessarily say "I am a girl."

We'll see where his dreams take him.   While one road may be an uphill climb in the type of world/country we live in, we do and will love him the same either way.

Proud of the Pink

If you regularly read my blog (or know and interact with my oldest child, Iver), you will know that his favorite pants (which are actually Target Cat & Jack leggings) in the world are pink, which is (after "rainbow," the color of unicorn tails and manes) his favorite single color. He likes to wear them with multi-colored (including pink) tie-dye-colored crocs which were a rare Target splurge because he was absolutely and unequivocally in love with them.  He would wear these pink pants (we actually have two pairs that get rotated) daily if we did laundry often enough. The knees of his favorite leggings (his second-favorite color ones are in lavender and turquoise) get worn out frequently because he only has a few-pair rotation.

He (and therefore, we) uses masculine pronouns for himself, but there was a time (when he was about three) where he had a strong preference for wearing "dresses" (borrowing my shirts and blouses to wear as such) and we weren't really sure whether he actually identified as a girl or just was expressing a more transient wish to be one, in part as he has had so many positive female role models, including aunts and teachers. While it didn't matter to us how he felt (or dressed), we feared that the world would not be as kind (I'm not sure if his friends comment on his pink leggings or unicorn outfits. If so, it hasn't bothered him, and I'm thankful for this). I blogged in 2018 about his preference of pink-and-purple pull-ups, and wrestled with my acceptance of the gender-unconventional. I have long since abandoned minding or interfering in how he expresses himself in terms of clothing and fashion, as long as it's mostly weather-appropriate, respectful, and clean.

Halloween 2018, age 3,  dressed as Dorothy,  with his "ruby" (well, pink due a Mom online order snafu) slippers

Laurie Frankel's book This is How it Always Is is an incredible novel to read for any of you who have tried to parent a child that may be different on the gender spectrum, and characterizes well the conflicting emotions of parents who know that the world will undoubtedly treat these children harshly despite our best intentions and deep love. Another great book (a true story) about a transgender child (a twin; her brother is cis-male) and her conservative family is Becoming Nicole, which I read last year and also highly recommend (spoiler alert: her family comes around).

Thankfully, Iver knows that his parents love him, no matter what his gender and/or the gender or sexual orientation of his future potential partners. We believe in this house that LOVE IS LOVE and that people of any gender or sexual orientation deserve full respect, human and civil rights, as students, as parents, and as citizens. It breaks my heart that some children (perfectly and wonderfully made) are forced to grow up in homes that are homophobic or transphobic and even abusive, their family's words, actions, and votes often contradicting a (their) very religion that calls us to love all just as God loves us, and harming these kids' spirits sometimes irreparably in the process.  I wonder if these courageous and remarkable children can ever hope to change their parents' and neighbors' hearts and views in their lifetimes and can only pray that love could soften those walls.

It is Pride Month. I don't know if my young child is LGBTQ+ or not, but I love and will support him (or her, if that's what fits) regardless.  May we all strive to be allies, to educate our neighbors and colleagues, and, above all, to literally and figuratively embrace all of those people you encounter who continue to be marginalized and discriminated against in our society, whether it be by true malice or just ignorance by others.

 Be proud of his/her/their pink pants...

... even when they are paired with a bright red top!

PRIDE (/hope for the future)

 

We are LGBTQ+ allies in this house. We wondered somedays what gender/orientation our oldest would identify with, due to the pink pull-ups, dresses, and pink leggings he preferred to wear as a youngster and that (until the last year or so) his favorite color was "rainbow." We have been open to whoever he would be, because Love is Love. 

Iver's been attending a forest camp this week, which also wrapped up Pride Month 2022. Here was his matter-of-fact conversation on Wednesday...

Iver: Do you know something unique about Scout, one of my counselors at camp?

Me: No, what is it?
Iver: They are trans.

Me: Oh, that's cool. Do you know what that means?
Iver: Of course! Do you know what that means?

Me: Yes, I do. So do you know how best they identify?

Iver: Yes! Their pronouns are THEY/THEM!
Me (smiling so wide): That's great that you know that.

Iver: So can I follow their YouTube channel?
Me: Umm. I don't think so. But I will think about it. 

So many human rights are under assault from the religious right in this country.  I'm not sure if marriage equality, access to contraception, or inter-racial marriage is next on the Supreme Court chopping block.  However, the fact that my seven-year-old knows how to use gender-appropriate pronouns and doesn't find this shocking or a big deal gives me hope for the future of our country.

Three-year-old update!

At three, Iver weighs about 27 lbs (8%) and is about 3 ft. tall (~14%). He seems to have gone through a growth spurt recently, and now fits 2T pants (some 18mo-2 year shirts).

He sleeps through the night about 75% of the time in his own full bed in his room. We generally ignore the night wakings on the other nights, but they are still not extinguished.  When he "sleeps through," he goes to bed around 8 or 8:30 and wakes up between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. (it's SUCH a bonus when it's after 5 a.m., although nothing, including bribes or a later bedtime, has seemed to make a consistent difference in making this happen more regularly). He takes a good post-lunch nap (usually 2 hours at home, probably about 1-1.5 hours at preschool). He still has the toddler ok-to-wake alarm clock in the room, but it doesn't really do anything to change behavior. We have taken the door monkey off the door in his room as he tends to stay in it (most of the time).  One of us still has to lie next to him until he's asleep, a habit ("tradition") we're going to try to break soon, but it's working ok (I listen to podcasts to pass the quiet time and we often fall asleep!).

He is a great eater now (for all of my anxiety that he was going to starve himself to death by refusing solids. I cut him off of nursing a few days past age two, and that definitely helped). He loves: pizza, pasta, spicy hotdogs (with grilled onions), meat (except he, like mama, doesn't really like chicken) and meatballs, "baby pho," green beans, snap peas, pickles, and fruits of all kinds, particularly grapes, mandarins, longans, and raisins.  He seems to consume 50% of his calories before noon, with large breakfasts including raisin bread, raisin bran or granola. He drinks 1-2 cups of whole milk per day, and loves sparkling water like I do (but also still water). He does have a sweet tooth and asks for "dessert" whenever it's available, although we serve it infrequently.

He is quite the communicator, and impresses with us with his perceptiveness and vocabulary. He makes up full stories and jokes. He knows words like "similar,"  "automatic," and constructs sentences with "nocturnal" and "accidentally." He has learned many "collective nouns" of groups of animals, so can rattle off "a parliament is a group of owls," "a leash is a group of foxes," etc.  One day this week, when we were leaving preschool, he said "I just saw a murder (group of crows)!"  He knows many Vietnamese words (more than I do, actually!). He knows all of his letters and can read "OPEN," "STOP," and "IVER" and a few more simple words, and tries to sign his name in at school. He has trouble pronouncing the "sp" sound ("spirit" is "firit," "spider" is "fider," etc...), but it's very cute.

He has been potty trained since just a tad after age 2, including for naps, but wears pull-ups at nighttime (since sleep has been such a battle, we're not ready to move to nighttime potty trips just yet).

He loves: books, stories, nursery rhymes, songs and singing (and playing "name that tune"), his magnet tiles and building towers, playing hide-and-seek and chase, arts and crafts, "helping" mama cook, pouring water into containers, lying on our blowing heater vents, running, jumping, climbing and playing outside at parks. He likes to do things his way and in particular orders.  He doesn't get much screen time (he'll be engaged for up to 15 minutes of Zootopia, Sing, and Blues Clues on DVD), but does like watching Barney on YouTube while Kelvin showers and enjoys Facetiming/Skyping with family.  We got him a *real* bike with training wheels for his birthday, and he is trying to get the strength to propel the pedals forward. He loves Costco trips with "papa" (when I am on call) and eating "out."

He hates: being told when and how to do something, getting lotion put on his dry skin, brushing his teeth, washing his hands or face, and wearing underwear other than those with Angry Birds on them.

He actually tolerates the (forward-facing) carseat quite well now.

He's still very much an energetic, intense and "strong-willed child," although discipline has been easier as he's gotten older, with him being able to fully understand consequences of fighting/disobeying/doing repetitive harmful or destructive behaviors when given warnings.  I like the "1,2,3 Magic" and "Love and Logic" approaches to toddler discipline, and they seem very effective in him at this age, compared to a year ago, when some of the battles were endless and seemingly un-winnable.  One day last week when he would not cooperate with the toothbrushing, we told him that he was going to lose his (school snack) fruit pouch if he continued, and he went on to lose it (and did not protest). When his preschool teacher asked him where his pouch was, he wouldn't admit that it was withheld because he was being naughty, but that he'd "lost it." :) So I guess we need to work on the truth-telling part of his story-telling, but that will come...  He's apparently an empathetic, obedient and very easy-to-manage child at school, which is good (I guess!).

He is, most of the time, an incredibly fun and funny, animated 3-year-old who is excited to welcome his brother (who he has decided to name "Poopy") in a couple of months. I really love this age!

We started his big day waking up from a California-to-Virginia red-eye to visit my parents. He was pretty jet-lagged and cranky, despite a long nap, but enjoyed chasing park squirrels, opening some gifts, including a Magformers Robot set, and devouring a raisin-topped donut for "dessert"!

Thanks to auntie Kat for this montage