Planes, Trains and Automobiles...

Before Elijah was even born, both Marc and I were adamant that we would do our best not to impose any institutionalized gender ideals onto our baby. I figured that he will have the rest of his life to deal with the imposition of various gender stereotypes and it did not need to begin at home. We did not find out the gender before the birth, and therefore had a baby dressed in lots of whites, yellows and greens the first few months. However, even once we started buying clothes for Elijah, knowing he was a boy, we bought very few blue outfits. In fact, I think he looks best in purple and orange (neither stereotypical girl or boy colors, really). We also did our best to impart to everyone that we didn't want to thrust him into the preconceived "world of boy" where everything has pictures of trucks or sports. It was easy in the beginning as a plain, old, wooden rattle is as gender neutral as you can get, but as Elijah got older it became a bit harder to figure out. We never pushed him towards certain toys and we never kept him away from others. We did our best to have many varieties of toys available, and I have to say that he can be happy as a clam sitting and nursing his dolls before putting them down for a nap. He can also be extremely content playing with his trains. Elijah loves to create new and varied track set ups each time and then takes his trains around the track many times before rearranging the track one more time and doing it all again. Lately he has been gravitating more towards his trains and trucks, and less towards the dolls, but 'm sure in another month something else will have captured his attention. I'm just doing my part and enjoy watching him get excited by whatever excites him at that particular moment...