gender. politics.

Hudson has learned that the best time to play with Harper's things is when she is napping. Which, sadly, is only happening about twice a week now. I had hoped she'd keep her nap until she was four (I know, I'm greedy) but it looks like I might have to be satisfied with 3 1/2. She will play quietly in her bed for a couple of hours though, so I'm technically not complaining. Anyway, one day last week when she was actually napping, Hudson woke up first and decided that he really wanted to wear Harper's pink wedge flip-flops.
He found the wedge a little steep for walking and his toes refused to embrace the necessary position, as you can see in the photo. Even so, he kept at it for a good 20 minutes. The whole episode was interesting to me because just that morning I'd had a great conversation with my dear friend Mrs. B (who, incidentally, is always good for fabulous conversation amidst the mothering. Just this morning she brought up Noam Chomsky! at the playground!) about gender roles and how much of it is conditioned versus innate. I've done lots of thinking about how we think about femininity and masculinity, and how much of that is God-governed as opposed to societal. Not much, I'm afraid. As parents, you are solely responsible for shaping your children's aesthetic. You are the filter. It's not that difficult to decide which sentiments are the correct ones to inculcate. But there's the figuring out how your kids are truly different in their innate uniqueness and how to make that part of their process towards glorifying and enjoying God forever. The hard part comes with the actual practice, which must be carried out in the actual world. The world of Bratz dolls and Hannah Dakota and t-shirts like the one I saw at the mall last week that read : "I HATE school but I LOVE boys!" So, I'll let you know when I've got it all figured out. Sometime next week, I'm sure.

I've seen high school students debate better than our two presidential contenders. I'll watch again on Wednesday night but it will pain me and make it harder for me to vote and not easier. Time constraints are to our immense detriment when it comes to finding out the measure of a man. The candidates are so afraid of being misunderstood or misrepresented that they end up saying nothing at all that isn't riddled with cliches or tired accusations. We are, in our laziness, at the whim of the media for whom the sound bite is their corporate bread and butter. Stale bread and rancid butter.

Today at the pool we met a lady from Scotland and Harper told her she was pretty sure that several of the lizards we'd seen on our walk over had come from Scotland. Hudson, meanwhile, was carefully using his yellow shovel to scoop water into a bucket which he then poured into another bucket, which he then poured on himself. Then he would start over. He was dismayed to leave the job unfinished when it was time to go.