I really think I need to read the book "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" by Peggy Orenstein. Nora's favorite color has been blue for a long time now. Her second favorite, green. I knew that she would likely change to pink or pink and purple with school exposure, but I didn't realize how quickly it would happen!
At Rugged Bear, we were looking at the winter coats. I saw the coat I expected Nora would pick out. It was bright blue with a white stripe on each side - the stripes had peace and love symbols. Totally Nora! Well, she walked right past the coat and picked up a pink coat and said, much to my dismay, "Mommy, I should get this coat because it's pink and I'm a girl." I almost cried right then and there! Was it happening already? But, she's only 3 (and 1/3, of course!). We sat down and talked about how pink was a popular favorite color for girls, but that she didn't have to get pink just because she was a girl and she should choose any color that she liked. After a looooong series of questions from Nora, she decided that she would pick out the coat she liked. And big surprise, she liked the blue one I initially spotted!
There have been a number of other similar situation where she "couldn't" do something because she was a girl. I knew it would come, I just wasn't ready for it.
Another thing that has happened is we watched a Thomas the Train video and Nora was instantly hooked! At Target a few days later, she had a meltdown because she couldn't get a new train set. She really wanted a blue train with a silver face. We try to maintain a fairly commercial-free home, so all of our current trains are simple Ikea or Montgomery Schoolhouse trains. Made me realize just how good the marketing people are when it comes to kids and how difficult it's going to be to combat it. Luckily, the library has plenty of Thomas books and we have many friends with Thomas trains so she can get her fix. And really, there are far worse things out there than a Thomas train!
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