Pink bunnies and Nail Polish. For boys.

Ahh how soon we forget that age, that age when everything is a drama, everything is a tragedy, and nearly every note out of their rosebud lips is a whiney-screech. In my family, I am talking about 2 1/2 to about 3 1/2 years old. oh my god just give him the little jelly packet! who cares! Is the kind of thing we all do in a semi-panic to stop that horrific squealing. Honey can you please please say it nicely? Mommy cant understand you when you whine like that, dear darling. Shut up or Ill....just please please say it nicely, honey....it is so intense. It is intense when you are alone with this ultra-sensitive, ultra-demanding, ultra-freaked out little person, but add to it an older sibling or two or three who seem (am I imagining it? I am afraid not) to purposefully disturb/disrupt the little tragic toddler all day long, and there is no end to the weird stuff you might "let slide" just to get 2 or 3 minutes of reward in the form of the most adorable, precious, happy, proud little cherub that you love so much, eating the jelly packet with a knife at the restaurant. Wearing rainboots, a diaper, and a backwards sweater to the store. And yes, trying out that most interesting of Mama's crafts, nail polish. It is darling on little fat hands, and the little fat hands have often been those belonging to--gasp!--a boy.

Now, I don't give one hoot if you are open minded, closed minded, traditional, progressive, cool or uncool, I think we can all admit that painting is very alluring to toddlers, and I hope we can all admit that there is nothing wrong with paint. So when we come up against folks who flip out over boys in nail polish, what we are dealing with is something very ingrained and I do not think they realize on the surface just what their upset can seem to symbolize. Misogyny, homophobia, its all there but a 2 dollar bottle of wet-n-wild does not a gay man make. If your child has the genetic makeup to want to wear makeup as an adult lifestyle choice, you did not make or break that by allowing him to try the freakin nail polish, ok? No matter how many Maury episodes you watched in 1991, it doesnt work that way. tO be perfectly honest, I think that making some its just for ladies, ooh la la thing out of it would increase the mystique and allure a hundredfold. Its not sex, its not gender, its PAINT. Im even gonna go out on a limb here and guess that if someone was truly gender dysphoric, transgender, or homosexual, what a wonderful thing they could have in their life's story: " my mom and dad wre always so cool to me about little stuff." You know? But back to reality:

I for one do not have the energy, interest, or inclination to tell a pestering toddler anything besides yes or no. and for me, if they wanna have little red or blue fingernails for a couple of days (it chips off at lightning speed unless you wanna go the extra mile for a base coat top coat and sealer which god bless you my toddlers dont stay still that long) GO FOR IT. Nobody cares at all.

Now, onto Halloween:
Charlie is right there, at that age. He is delighted and contented about 15% of the time and the rest he is extremely concerned, freaking out, wigging out, trying to explain himself with his limited vocab, and yes, he whines so so so much. He also succumbed to being afraid of all things Halloween about a month ago. Maybe it was the entire aisle clever candy dishes with skeletal hands in them that all turned on by themselves when we walked past them at WalMart. Maybe it was Casey whispering horrible things in his ear. Who knows. But Charlie, like Mickey, is more of a worrywort/fraidy cat than a daredevil guy, and he didnt want to have anything to do with Halloween. When we tried to talk to him about "you get candy and it is really---" He just starts running around saying "Candy! I want candy! I want candy! I want candy! I want some candy!" and thats sort of hard to listen to. so its weird. a weird year. I didnt know what ?I wanted to do, I wanted us all to go out trick or treating.

Well, then we went shopping for some costumes. Many years I have been more than creative, sewing and gluing and duct taping up some real darling little things: Mickey especially has been a race car, a lego, and Im gonna go on ahead and bless my own heart here: a bowling pin that I made while 42 weeks pregnant and in early labor. For real. But this year, I dont know, we just went to Target and bought stuff.
Greta got a skeleton outfit, very scary and cool. I am so proud that she is not the Slut-o-ween type that saying yes to the skeleton suit was a no-brainer.
Mickey got an "unknown phantom" outfit--it didnt look like much in the package but it is so cool! He is such a skinny little wisp, and it is this little black tunic, black cloak-hood thing with glowing eyes! Its really scary, but in this interesting way, not gory just really cool effect with the little glowing eye glasses.
Casey chose a fireman outfit and now hates it because it isnt scary. Of course. We told him we will help him be a scary fireman, maybe with facepaint. It came with a fake Axe so he liked that, naturally. ah, Casey.

But Charlie, who didnt want to dress up, didnt want to talk about it, announced in Target, in the Charlie-and-Eska cart (Steve and I have to do 2 carts, one with Casey and products, one with Charlie and Eska) that he was gonna be a "Pink Bunny". i think he said a Pink Baby Bunny.
I loved the idea and I was so touched by the thought and symbolism that he must have gone through to come up with what I can only guess was the un-scariest thing in the whole world--a pink baby bunny. We were going to go look at the costume area but no no no he was too afraid, so we went over to the baby clothes area and I was thinking I could get him a girl's pink one piece footed pajama and then go to JoAnn fabrics and sew him little ears, when all of a sudden we saw an actual baby hat that was pink with ears and a bunny face on it. Presto! I grabbed him a pink sweatshirt and pink sweatpants (to be enjoyed by Eska in a couple of years no doubt) and there you have it folks! A pink baby bunny. To try and talk him into a blue bunny or anything else would just be so so weird. Just so weird. this is a child who overcame great fears, and came up with his own heartfelt solution to a big dilemma in his life--planning for a holiday that he does not remember from last time, I dont know--I just think the whole thing is fabulous.

I think it is so classic and such a great family story already. With five kids, I am all nostalgic and grandmotherly in a lot of ways now. The little transgressions just touch my heart, it all goes so fast. It all goes by so flipping fast. He is gonna be the coolest cutest most wonderful pink baby bunny there ever was. Maybe ill paint his nails black for little claws, too.