It's time.

I think it's time to start this back up and make some changes. Where my original plan was to just keep up with Alice's life, it's been discovered that this is a mommy journey too. The name of the blog will be changed to Strange Adventures in Mommy-hood. Where as my husband doesn't have time to constantly post on a blog, I'm sure he'll pop in every now and then. I may even invite other mothers to post, because we all have different stories.

So let me catch you up on some things...last time we checked in Alice was nine months, she's now two years old. She's a handful, loves to read, and is very smart. She never ceases to amaze me. She's blonde and brown eyes, looks like a perfect mix between Brandon and I. After a short holiday season job, I am now a stay at home mom and author (oh yeah, that totally happened last year, but this is not the place for talking about that. :) ), I take care of the house, the baby, the cooking, and pretty much everything else. Brandon puts in quite a bit of help (as a daddy should!) when it comes to Alice and helps out where he can, but our agreement is he works, I worry about everything else. (Except, like I said...he does parenting duty, do not think for a moment he doesn't.) He works full time with a job that requires him to travel, sometimes just to the next town over, and sometimes over night. We have all learned so much over the last months. We've made mistakes, we've made progress, and we've grown. That is important, but not my reason for posting.

My reason for posting today is the ridiculous debate on the whole "Break down the gender stereotypes."

I've been seeing articles floating around and raving reviews on this advertisement here, that encourages girls to play with an engineering toy instead of pink girly toys. (Like dolls and tea sets) Okay cool, we had toys like that growing up...they were called legos. And they weren't just boy toys.

I'm team encourage your baby to play and explore. Alice is a girl, we dressed her in girly clothes, in pinks and purples. She has a play kitchen, a little girl broom and she pretends to cook and clean 'just like mommy!' and it's because she sees me doing all of this. Brandon's at work and occasionally Alice will grab a bag and wave to me, "buy bye mommy!" I ask her where she's going and she glares at me and says "work!" Certainly she gets that from her dad, because he's the one that goes to work everyday and Alice makes it a point to get up to say bye to him every morning.

Gender stereotype? Possible, because that's the role I play at home and I'm a woman. Do I think it would be different if Brandon stayed home and cleaned, cooked, and such? Yes. It would be 'just like daddy!' instead of mommy and that's because she would see daddy do it. Does she think that only mommies can cook and clean? Probably not, she's two, she sees what mommy does and imitates it. She imitates daddy in ways too. That's what she does. As parents we encourage her to grow and learn and that's what matters, boy toys or girl toys, it doesn't matter.

She has Duplo blocks, and not just pink ones. You can't build a lot of things with just pink legos, you need other colors too. She has a fire truck and hotwheels cars. She also has a baby doll, a pink rocking horse, Disney princess toys and pink and purple blankets. Does this mean she's going to grow up in gender stereo types? I don't know. She's going to grow up where she is going to be able to make her own choices and understand why she makes them.

I also think that if I had a boy he would do some of the same things that Alice does at this age, because it's nurture. Do I think a little boy is going to become gay because he likes to cook like mommy? (or cook like daddy, if daddy is the cook) No, I don't and that's a whole 'nother debate right there.  My point is, don't force it. Don't force your girl to play with a dolls if she rather play with GI Joe, don't tell her, because you are a girl...same with your boys. If they rather rock a baby instead of pretending to blow stuff up, let them. On the flip side, if he rather pretend to blow stuff up, let him. Don't try to force him into anti-society, gender wall blasting, activities. Everyone is an individual. Boys, girls, teens, adults, we all like different things. As we grow we form our own opinions and there is nothing wrong if it happens to fall into pink or blue genders. Don't force it on your children though, let them continue to grow and explore their own world.