Please Don’t Become a Girly Man

I have nothing against girly men, but I don’t exactly want to be the cause of my toddler son becoming one. I think about this as I put him to sleep in his sister’s old pink flower pajamas. 

I realize that Luke’s experiences in our household are probably different than if he grew up in a family of boys. Instead, he has an older sister who makes him sing Sound of Music songs, including acting out scenes from So Long, Farewell and The Lonely Goatherd.  (A toddler yodeling: precious.  A high school boy yodeling: hoisted on the flagpole by a major wedgie.) He thinks it’s normal to carry around a baby doll and fights with his sister over her headbands.

And he’s got a mother (me) who secretly hoped for another girl, but is now ecstatic to have a Mama’s Boy. Yes, while I love being the apple of his eye and cuddling my sweet boy angel, I also harbor fears of raising a Mama’s Boy who is the target of girly-man slurs by voices that sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. 

Am I scrambling his mind by exposing him to my hairspray fumes and allowing him to play in my closet while I get dressed? 

I wonder.

The boy follows me EVERYWHERE.

“I coming! I coming!”

Then, yesterday. Yesterday he followed me into the bathroom and proceeded to sit down on the bathroom scale, make “Shhhhhing” sounds, and then tried to stick a pantiliner down the front of his pants.

Um. Ha! But…Oh.

Hmmm. 

I hope this just means he is going to be a sensitive young man who treats women well. Most especially, his mother.

But maybe ix-nay on the lederhosen, even though it would be crazy ridiculously cute with knee-high socks and wooden clogs.