Rainy Saturdays

It's been raining for a few days now. I realize this is nothing to complain about compared to our family and friends suffering "snowmageddon" in the northeast. Would it be considered in poor taste to say that we would love to have about ten of the 36 inches that have fallen in the DC area today? We would really love to make a snowman.

Because of the rain, we have to make up things to do in our very, very tiny house. It's actually quite entertaining so I spent this afternoon observing differences in personalities between Helen and Little Philip.

Helen is such a little girl. For my friends that believe in the nurture argument about gender differences, Helen is living proof that nature often takes a commanding lead. I am not a girly-girl, never have been. There were no dolls in my room growing up. I had science test kits, dug in the dirt, built forts in the woods (by the way, thanks Wildwood Walmart for establishing your presence directly on top of my once beautiful fort. I'm still that bitter twelve year old). Enter Helen into our lives. She loves dolls, loves babies, and pulls my necklaces off to try on all the time. In a word, she is all girl. She also has an outstanding sense of imagination. This afternoon Helen disappeared on me for about five minutes. I was in the dining room tagging toys and clothing for an upcoming consignment sale. I went into the kitchen and found Helen sitting in my chair at the table. She had her baby doll firmly clipped into her booster seat. She asked me for a bowl and spoon. I asked her if she needed a bib too to which she replied uh huh (we are working on please and thank you but it's a struggle). She then commenced to feeding her baby. It was so adorable.


After catching that little moment I decided to film Little Philip for comparison. Little Philip is a realist, and black and white kind of guy. He has virtually know concept of how to play make believe. If he had happened upon his sister, he would have wondered what in the heck she was doing, maybe even offering to dump real oatmeal into the bowl rather than try to comprehend make believe oatmeal. Instead, Little Philip was happily coloring in the living room, singing his Letter People songs, talking to himself about the characteristics of each letter person. To him, the Letter People are very real. To us, they are practically nauseating. Every night he listens to the Letter People music CD. He has us put his CD player on random (he'll come out a fuss if the songs go in order) and sleep mode. If he is still awake when the music stops, he will come out and tell us to turn it back on. Meanwhile, Helen is snoozing within a minute of going down. However, she'll be up in about three hours. Philip will be out cold.


My children seem to be polar opposites right now and it is so intriguing to watch how these differences play out each day.