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Friday, August 8, 2008

Interesting insights unearthed by an article

I just got done reading this article "The Real Differences Between Boys and Girls", http://www.parenting.com/article/Baby/Development/The-Real-Difference-Between-Boys-and-Girls, and I was fascinated. Here are a few of my own observations that relate to the article.


The Toys
Lili has everything from Matchbox Cars, a pull toy animal train, balls, learning toys and a baby doll. She really favors her stuffed animals the most. She cuddles with them at night, and walks around during the day putting them aside or handing them to someone for safe keeping. She does like the baby doll, but keeps picking it up by the hair which is kind of funny. But she is instinctively delicate with it, otherwise. She holds it carefully, which amazes me. She has no older siblings or cousins to mimic, that is her instinct telling her a baby is fragile. But she will throw her other toys around the house to hear the sounds they make.



She loves her drum set and turns it on to dance with. She is gentle one minute, and a rough and tumble, fearless little sprite the next.

Action
She is always on the move. She will climb up, over, around and through anything in her way. She can figure out how to do almost anything by watching. The coolest thing is that she will reverse any action Matt and I do, say how we block her from going this place or that. She watches how we block the area, then she starts with the last step we did, undoing things as she goes, until she is through the obstacle. It is quite amazing.

She has such fine motor skills, I am constantly amazed. Turning pages in a book, tearing paper, you name it, she does it.

Motion
She loves faces, but she loves technology even more. She figured out what the TV remote did by like 7 months. She couldn't figure out what button did what right away, but she would pick it up and point it at the TV. Now she knows where the mute button is, the off button, the volume, and the channel changing button. It is quite impressive.

She starting walking unaided on her 1st birthday. But yet we can't get her to say much more that 7 words in English. She either speaks Alien, Angel or Japanese depending on who in the family you talk to. But she jibber-jabbers ALL DAY LONG.

Boy vs Girl
I can't say truly if there is a real difference between boys and girls that is that noticeable. Everyone always says girls are gentle and soft and quite, and Lili is rarely any of those things. But she is also a lot like I was. I wasn't really a girly girl either. I liked pretty things, but I wanted to jump off things (and did with occasional negative side effects, and I have the scars to prove it) and play hard. And I did. And she will too.

But I would love to have a little boy one day, to compare the two
:-)

Time to drift off topic
I think it has a lot to do with the parents and how they treat the child. My Dad never told me there was something I couldn't do because I was a girl (may be things I shouldn't do, but that is another story). He and my Mom played with us, taught us to be imaginative and play by ourselves, and encouraged us at anything we wanted to do. I think that helped a lot. And just because I don't wear pink and think I should be Happy Homemaker doesn't make me less of a woman. I want Lili to know that too.

Watching my little one is an amazing thing. The new things she discovers fascinate me. It could be something simple that I take for granted, like opening a door or picking something up off the floor, but she does it and she is so proud of herself.

Each new word is a milestone. Each time I hear her call me mom, each time I ask where something is and she points to it or goes and gets it, it is amazing.

I have a little person living in my house. She's not just my baby anymore, she is her own being, with her own thoughts, personality and attitude. Being her mom is the single greatest experience I've ever had in my life, followed closely by being Matt's wife.

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