A LITTLE GIRL ARRIVES

The Stranger In My House

About two weeks ago, a stranger showed up at my house. She's alternately sweet and pouty, one minute smiling and hugging, the next minute turning her lips in an inverted cupid's bow and forcing one perfectly formed crocodile tear from her huge eyes. Yes, she's a stranger, but she's taken up residence in Gracie's body. This stranger who now lives at my house is flirty, flippant, at times coy and dare I say it - prissy. Yes, somewhere in the last month, my baby turned toddler has come out of yet another cocoon phase as nothing other than a little girl.

For all intents and purposes, for all her purple dresses, girly hair bows, and pink ruffled panties, Gracie has been a rather androgynous creature for the last fourteen months. Truthfully, she could have been a boy dressed in girls' clothing. Yes, she was without a doubt female, but there was nothing in either her little baby countenance or personality that would have suggested she was actually a girl. She was as likely to burp loudly or walk around with her hand stuck in her diaper, a la Al Bundy, as she was to bat her eyes or smile beguilingly. Over the last few months, she has started to take on a distinctively feminine appearance. Her features are softening, losing their pudgy babyness. The physical change has been gradual. Her personality change, though, has been rather abrupt. It was if she went to sleep one night a baby, neither boy nor girl, and woke up as the poster child for "Thank Heaven For Little Girls". If her dark, straight hair had sprouted Shirley Temple golden curls, I wouldn't have been more surprised.

The Breck Girl
I watched her the other morning as she was brushing her hair. It wasn't the act alone that was new and different (she's been at least trying to brush her hair for several months). It was the way she was brushing her hair. As the bristles moved through her baby fine hair, she turned her head from side to side shaking her hair out. When she finished, she ran her fingers through her hair as if to fluff if up - like a shampoo commercial. She opened her eyes wide and smiled. It was almost as if she had an imaginary mirror in her hand and was pleased with what she saw. I'm not sure if this is learned or instinctive behavior - if it's learned, I have no idea where she learned. My husband doesn't have enough hair to brush (you know, the military cut) and I don't think Gracie has ever seen me brush my hair - in fact, I'm not sure that it's been brushed since she was born.

She feeds her baby dolls their bottles, covers them with blankets, and pats them to sleep with the sweetest of motherly attention. She seems to have more of a maternal instinct than I did before she was born. She's always been fascinated with dolls, but until recently, she treated them as objects on her level, friends to play with. Now, it's as if she's nurturing them - she sees them as little people who need her to take care of them. (Of course, this doesn't stop her from swinging them around by one arm, or sticking an unfortunate one under her rocking horse and rocking away on its head, but she does it so lovingly....)

Gender Roles
The biggest change though has come in the way that she relates to her daddy and me. Sometimes it seems as if she sees me as some sort of combination between a comrade in arms and a competitor. She was sitting in her high chair, repeatedly throwing her sippy cup on the floor. After the tenth time picking it up, I told her “No more! I’m not picking it up again.” Then, her daddy came inside. She took one look at him and I swear, stuck out her bottom lip and batted her eyes. Marilyn Monroe couldn’t have done a better job. Steve gave her a cookie. She looked at me, winked, and I’m convinced if she knew how to do it, she’d have stuck her tongue out at me.

I know that there is probably some complicated psychological or anthropologic explanation for the developing roles in our family. Gracie is beginning the slow awakening of her female self – the one that will probably cause both of her parents to cover our eyes and shudder when she reaches dating age (about 35). For now though, it’s taking a little getting used to. For the longest time we’ve been three unique beings – a woman, a man, and a baby. Now, the balance has shifted – we’re two females and one male. Poor Steve…..

Last week, I was sitting on the couch reading a magazine. Gracie climbed up with me, turned around and sat down. Then, she looked up at me and started laughing. I started laughing with her, peals of giggles overtaking both of us. Steve asked, from across the room, “What are you two laughing about?” Oh, honey, I can’t tell you – some things just have to stay between us girls.