Today Abbie is 4 months old.
Time flies!
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And this photo is why “CuteOverload” should have a baby section… da toes! da toes!
I have to echo Louise! I loooove baby feet!
I thought I was the only one with that particular fetish! *grin*
LOVE bare little baby feets!
Yes, I nibble them often. :)
Baby eaters.
She’s beautiful Vanessa! My Shawn will be four months old soon, a week from Monday. Has it gone really fast for you too? I love bare baby feet, but I also love tiny socks.
She has a very knowing look. She looks wise like a shaman.
AHHHHH! Cute! Baby! OH my goodness!
Damn, she looks smart. You’d better watch yourself …
Yeah, nibbling toes garners you strange looks when the kid is 11 and the toes are hanging out of the blankies at 5:30am… as well as a paint-shattering, “Moo-ooo-ooo-oom!” (how DO they put 4 syllables in that word?) But equally cute on your own kiddo, even with glittery nail polish.
She is cute and the clothes are cute too!
I wanted to ask what do you (and the other readers) think about dressing kids in gender descriprive clothing? Like, pink and embroidery for girls and so on. I had an argument with my husband the other day and he’s against it. I said I buy such stuff because it’s cute, and he said that I wouldn’t buy it for a boy (I donno, he may have a point here, I’m not sure). Generally his position was that even though these are cute, they are definitely in agreement with the social standard and by dressing our daughter like that we give her a message that she’s different from a boy and as she grows up it might have an impact on her. Well, I still buy her girlish looking outfits, but not dresses, they are uncomfortable IMHO.
So, do you have an opinion on that? We’re like in constant argument about these, though it’s not so serious, LOL
Momma2babies, I think pink & embroidery for girl babies and children is fine. But I would mix it up, too. If you think it’s cute, you think it’s cute. As long as you’re aware that the social standard exists and are careful not to try molding her into a stereotypical female.
For example, don’t discourage her from choosing clothing that doesn’t fit the feminine stereotype. Don’t buy her shirts with sexist messages on them. Let her play with trucks if she wants. From the sound of your post, I’m sure you’re already doing these things. You’re fine. :)
I honestly prefer to limit it, and try to mix it up and buy her blue clothes too. But it’s pretty much impossible to completely eliminate this unless you make your own baby clothes, especially if grandma is buying them for you.
I did a lot of dyeing. It’s not that I mind the pink so much, it’s the ultra-girly icky-poo super-frilly with eleventy hundred bows all over. As she gets bigger they clothes are less like this.
Although I guess as a “fun feminist” I shouldn’t mind.
I think that is a super-cute baby and a super-cute outfit, and far be it from me to criticize anyone’s adorable little baby clothes. But I was pretty horrified when I was looking for baby presents for my nephew (who is exactly Abbie’s age, give or take a few days), because *everything* was totally gendered. It was hard to find baby clothes that weren’t, especially at mass market places like Target. On-line, Target even has two separate sections for baby presents for boys and baby presents for girls. So I am making some effort to get him gender-neutral stuff, just because it seems like the trend is so clearly in the other direction. (And I knit, so it’s easier to do.)
And this seems like a good enough place to mention this creepy-ass baby gift from Target.
So dress the boys in pink once in a while. It’s cute on boy babies too. You can always say you’re a traditionalist if anyone complains.
Such a serious face! V. cute. :)
When I have kids, there will be plenty of yellow and green in their wardrobes. Nice, safe, gender neutral colors.
(That said, I *did* buy this for my friend’s baby shower, and she *is* having a little girl…
Too cute to pass up!
Look at that stare. I bet she hypnotizes people with those eyes. They look at her and two hours later they’re playing peekaboo and they can’t remember anything in between.
Yes, that’s right: once upon a time it was pink for boys, blue for girls…
It’s amazing how gendered baby clothes are. And how few items are available for boys.
My son’s favorite color has always been pink, so he has a few pink Oxfords. But it’s aggravating how few options there are, even if you have the money to buy boys lots of clothes. Sweats, jeans, and Ts are about it.
My daughter generally likes dresses, but most of the time she’s a dinosaur. She’s renamed herself “T-rex”. I rather like the contrast of girly-girl clothes and a growling, headstrong kid.
And girly clothes are cute. And there’s SO much selection for girls. I never played with dolls as a child, so my mom says that’s what I’m doing now.
As long as the clothes don’t affect how you treat them, or how they are allowed to play, dress them as you want for as long as they’ll let you. Even at 2, my daughter has days where she says “NO PANTS!” or “NO DRESSES!” which boggles me since the boy never cares.
i’ve had good luck finding cute unisex baby clothes for our 6mo son at old navy. last summer he wore lots of yellows & grays and this fall it’s been lots of tans & grays.
he also has an enormous amount of blue clothes, all of which were given to us. gah.
and i don’t go so far as to dress him in pink. people were disconcerted enough to see him in yellow & not know INSTANTLY what his sex was; i’m not going to put them & him through that confusion.
it’s a tough one. i completely disagree with the way baby & kid clothing is so intensely gendered. at the same time, i realise that is SOP in our society & i don’t want to set him up for difficulties in interacting with people in order to serve my ideals. so it’s gender neutral as much as possible.
Teehee… I bought that exact outfit for my baby niece just last month! *giggles*
Re: M2B
I let my babe choose. I have since she first showed signs of having a preference. I’ve pretty much raised her that way, letting her take the lead or trying to at least… lol.
I know that even though I do let her choose, my reaction to clothes that I express to/in front of her has influenced what she likes now. Since before she was born I’ve had a fondness for pink and purple… I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those are the colors she favors right now. However I also know that her own personal preferences are the deciding factor.. like I favor skirts and almost never wear dresses, but she loves pants and dresses. So I know that though I may have some influence, it is not 100%. 80% of it is all her. (10% me, 10% everyone else).
Just think of it this way… while we’re dressing them in ribbons and bows now, later they may morph into goth-tatoo-piecer-rebel teens! *jk*
I must be in a mood tonight… but thinking about this topic of “gender colors”… I just realized how SCREWED boys are when it comes down to it… I mean – little girls? You can dress them in ANY color (reds, blues, greens, yellows, pinks, purples, oranges, etc) … but boys? Nuh uh! That might “confuse them”.
And is it just me or are all the “boy” colors are so bland and boring?
One of my friends and her husband are “trying” for a baby. When I heard this I immediately squeed and said that I would be knitting lots of hats and blankets and sweaters and booties, because WEE AND CUTE. I was told that no “girly” colors were allowed, no matter the baby’s gender. Pastels might be okay, considering that most baby yarn is in soft colors. But since my friend is a huge Rangers fan, I think she’s angling for lots of blue and red!
Also, Abbie is terrifyingly intelligent. She is going to read my mind through the computer screen. (Reminds me a bit of my baby pictures – I am almost never smiling, just looking at the camera as if I’m trying to figure out how it works.)
The best way to find gender neutral clothes is to not know the sex of your baby. My daughter wasn’t in the correct position when we went for my ultrasound and we had no idea what she was until a few weeks before she was born. I was pretty much forced to look for clothes that could go either way. They are few and far between, but they are out there. I found some greens and yellows, some things that were white with designs and actually some orange and reds were pretty gender neutral. Once she was born, she wore a lot of dresses her first couple months because it was the summer and they are easy to put on and quick to get off, but the older she gets, we really stick to jeans and shirts. She does wear pink and purple, she loves anything with her favorite characters (dora, strawberry shortcake, diego, backyardigans, etc…) but she also wears a lot of orange (it looks good with her skintone), green, blue. Her favorite outfit right now is an orange body suit, jeans and hooded vest with matching orange sneakers and orange hat. My basic criteria is: does it fit well? does she like it? Is it relatively inexpensive? She does wear dresses on occasion, but it’s fairly rarely. When I was working, though, if I wore a skirt she insisted that she had to as well. It’s a lot harder with boys, especially if your husband is one of these “boys don’t wear pink or purple or girly stuff”, like mine is. He’s great about not fitting Isabelle into traditional gender role, but he insists that Shawn can’t wear girl colors or use girly scented lotion (like the berry scented stuff they have now). My son wears a lot of yellow, green, white, red and baby blue. I have had people mistake him for a girl on occasion, but usually people can tell.
Gender Neutral Baby Clothes.
I find that most clothing with animals on it is gender-neutral. You’ll get a blue sweatshirt with a giraffe on it, or something. I got a co-worker an adorable onesie for her daughter that was green, and it had a little plastic magnifying glass over a smiling worm on it, and the shirt said “Hello, Mr. Worm!” The coworker was a biologist and loved it.
It not that it’s such a horrible thing to dress your kids in gendered colors, it’s that gendered colors frequently trigger gendered behavior toward a child. In a famous psych study, they dressed a little boy up in pink and handed him to a series of adults and they would hold him closely and coo and babble, but then they dressed a little girl up in blue and this child was played with, bounced up and down on the knee, held up in the air, etc. While I don’t think that either one of those treatments is “bad,” it does reinforce that gender role assignment starts from the moment the baby is born.
Too cute! I think I have the Grown Up Version of those pants.
No, Rhiannon, it’s not just you. Most of the clothes marketed specifically for boys are boring and bland and covered with sports. Blah.
We had ultrasounds with both kids- on younger daughter, I KID YOU NOT, we have a sonogram photo of our darling little girl flipping us the bird. Funny as heck…and darned if she isn’t sweet yet incredible strong-willed almost 9 years later.