On having a boy

So, Jolly is maybe getting his eighth tooth and enjoying chewing on things. He continues to be an absolute eating machine. We hope the nonpickiness lasts: today the deliciousness of Borscht overrode the desire to feed himself, and he only minimally insisted on tipping the spoon down his front. (The bakery where we had said borscht gave him a tiny mason jar to drink from, and a tiny spoon, so it really was like a proper lunch date for two!) So far, the "boys will eat you out of house and home" stereotype seems to be holding, too!

Verbalizing is still limited to sounds not applied with any concrete meaning... again, sort of consistent with gender stereotypes.

I was recently asked by coworkers how I felt about having a boy. I hope that it's obvious that I feel awesome about it! I was always sure that we'd have a boy, and when I pictured us having kids 10-ish years ago, I envisioned a little boy with dark brown curls running around with a stick. (That particular image may come from a visit to France we made the end our sophomore year in college, right after we moved into our first apartment, where we came across a schoolyard in a walk around Paris, and there was a really cute little boy with wild brown curls chasing his brother around with a stick, and I totally melted and said something like, "We can have kids that cute someday, right?" Right!)

We're aware that as a two-mom household we have to work hard to make sure there are male role models available to our son, but honestly, I would feel exactly the same about the need for positive male influences if we had a daughter.

Ultimately, though, there's no way that two parents will include all of the diversity that it's important to expose kids to, so while a mom-and-dad household doesn't have to worry about providing male and female role models, they still have to worry that their kids grow up experiencing other kinds of diversity. As long as you're aware of those issues, and make efforts to address them by including a more diverse out-of-nuclear-family network, I don't think it's a big deal.

In spite of the verbal development not being the focus right now, Jolly loooves reading. It's pretty cute. His favorite toys are hands down his books: he leafs through them intently (and also throws them all into a pile). That's only if we don't count the cat as a toy, which we don't, mostly in the hopes of cultivating a gentle, loving relationship that is not based on biting (by the baby, not the cat, it has to be said)!