Growing Up Boy in an All Girls' World

Even I can do the math. Matt and Jeb are outnumbered. They live in a girly girls' world. They are surrounded by Barbies, ribbons, My Little Ponies, Groovy Girls, make up, dress up, pink everywhere. As a result, Jeb sometimes enjoys the occasional ponytail...(ok, I'll say it)... and hair bow, along with other dress up accessories. Like purses. Or shoes. Sometimes boas. To say this drives Matt insane would be an understatement.

Not to mention that recently, whenever we've perused the toy aisles, Jeb asks (ok, pitches an all-out fit) for "bebes" (aka babies). So, the other day, I bought him one. I know! That's horrible, right? I should steer him toward trucks and army guys and other manly toys. But when the little guy said, "Bebe," and that one little tear escaped down his cheek, I was finished.

So after he toted his bebe around for several days, Matt's mom put some money in my hand and said, "Go buy Jeb a toy from Gigi. And no babies!" I discussed the 'no babies' part with Jeb, and he seemed to be willing to comply. We went to Target, and I avoided the baby aisle like the plague. When we made it to the boy toy section, he zeroed in immediately on this.


A big blue shark truck that moves and makes lots of noise. Lots and lots of noise. He was pumped. Ready to get that thing out of the box and away from the 793 screws that were keeping it packaged tightly in it's protective case. But since I didn't have a power screwdriver on me, he held it like this all the way home.


Since then, he has rarely allowed the shark truck out of his sight. We take it everywhere. I was all ready to do a 'Thank you, Gigi' blog post this morning--a 'See how ALL BOY I am' blog post. I told Jeb to go get his truck. He did. I went for my camera, but somehow got distracted along the way. When I finally made it to where he was playing, this is what I found. Jeb, the shark truck, a naked Groovy Girl, and My Little Pony. (And a bottle of Benadryl which has no baring to this story, but since it's pictured I thought I'd mention it only to reassure everyone that its childproof cap was functioning properly.)


This was not going to work. I needed to show Gigi and everyone else my ALL BOY boy playing with his shark truck! So I took away his Groovy Girl and My Little Pony. And this ensued...


Frustrated, I decided to distract him for a bit. We got dressed, played with the cat, then I tried again... this time with video. I thought I was doing so well. I downloaded my video, only to sit here and laugh out loud when I saw the ending. So, as it freezes at the end, just remember, this boy really is ALL BOY... he just can't catch a break today.