Mary, Our Girl

Mary is definitely proving her femininity and how much of that is nature, not nurture. Children don't have a concept of gender for years (John figured out that he is a boy a few months ago), so it's certainly not possible that Mary is modeling herself after me because she knows we are females.

For example, Mary takes great interest in my makeup. John always liked to play with my makeup, but mostly as the items were things to manipulate. In contrast, Mary already daily imitates putting on makeup herself--and once got into my lipstick and properly applied it to her lips!

The most precious of all is Mary's interest in dolls. I recall that John only began to show vague interest in a stuffed animal at 18 months old, but really didn't embrace a lovey until two years old (and then he dropped it six months later). In contrast, Mary began hauling around dolls (and things that she could pretend were dolls) before one year old. She really likes the felted saint dolls I bought the kids for Easter and shrieks "baby!" when she spots them. She has invented her own game (which you'll note involves interaction with another person, not playing by herself) in which she leads me to the couch, where we sit down with the "babies." She always hands me Baby Francis first and she takes Baby Mary. Then she instructs me to "pat pat pat" the baby on the back, so we hold our babies against our hearts--gently, just like a real baby--and "pat pat pat." Then we give the babies a kiss, and then she indicates that we should exchange our babies. Repeat this game many times. The only doll John ever took interest in was his potty training doll and, really, he was interested because he could manipulate it to pass water!

Mary shows some sweet female behaviors, but she's also adventurous, rough and tumble, and hardly notices when she gets injured. It's neat for me to watch nature at work!