dusty dolly...

 Reminiscing yesterday about my son and the family next door naturally got me thinking today about my daughter's role in all this.  The same little boy who lived next door had two older sisters, about eight and ten when my son was born.  While I was getting the nursery ready for my firstborn, I had the window open and while painting the walls a soft yellow (we didn't know the baby's sex ahead of time back then) I was able to listen to the girls playing on their back patio with their Barbie dolls.  Their mom had sewed lots and lots of outfits for those dolls and the girls delighted in dressing the dolls and acting out stories with them.  As I listened, I thought "Oh, if my baby is a girl she will love playing with dolls too."  Well, my first child was a boy so that didn't happen, although he did like his Dapper Dan doll. My second child was a daughter though and my hopes revived that she would love playing with dolls.  Nope, she was much happier chasing after her brother and his friends.  As she grew older, my stepmother, who was an expert seamstress, gave my daughter several China dolls for which she had sewn beautiful outfits.  They sat on shelves in my daughter's bedroom, never played with.  Little girls are also supposed to be fun to dress.  There are much cuter clothes available for girls than boys.  Right. By middle school she was into grunge, mostly black and army green, comfy but not at all girly, but you choose your battles in middle school.  In high school she did wear stunning dresses to her two proms.  She looked so beautiful.  Her wedding was also lovely, but that was pretty much it. After college, where she played rugby on a co-ed team, she joined the military and became a helicopter mechanic, not at all girly.  Later, she built and loaded bombs.  Always in uniforms.  Then she became a chaplain's assistant, still in uniform, mostly desert fatigues.  Now she is retired from the military but a few years ago started a new civilian career, as a surgical technologist.  You guessed it. Now she wears scrubs to work all day, every day. Very comfy and practical but not very feminine.  Ah well, how can I criticize while I sit here wearing jeans and a t-shirt? I was probably a bad influence.