I did take Boo Boo to the doctor and it turns out has grew 2.5 inches and gained 3.5 lbs in the last year. He'll continue to be a smallish kid as he's always been in the 10th percentile for weight and in the 25th percentile for height, but the doctor isn't worried, so that is good.
We did talk to the doctor about his imagination. You see, for the last 18 months, Boo Boo has loved pretending he's a girl. At first it was just wearing long Tshirts (his big boy shirts) as dresses. Then he used to twirl like a ballerina. Then he had a serious conversation with me about how he loved pink but couldn't like it because the big boys at school said it was a girl color. (Aside, this drives me insane that the girl stuff and boy stuff is coming up at age 3. That's the con to a montessori classroom with older kids, I think). Now he asks us to call him Kate, Georgia, or whichever girl he's being that day, and corrects our pronouns to "she" and our references to him as "big brother" to "big sister" when we talk to Boobette about him. He still loves his trains and his basketball and Lightning McQueen and Diego, but will always pick Barbie or princess stickers at the doctor's office when offered. But he does tend to pick the purple basketball over the orange one at his YMCA games.
He'll tell you when he's being a girl. When you say, "um, Boo Boo, you know you are a boy, right?" he responds, "I know but I'm just using my imagination." And when you ask "but why don't you use your imagination to be Spiderman or Superman?" he gives you a withering look and says "because they don't wear purple sparkles." You really can't argue with that logic. He's clearly expressing a preference, understands reality, and so we are letting him. I hope he doesn't get teased for wearing a bow in his hair, but if he does, he'll decide how to handle it. Pretend play is not ususual, he has a little sister, loves his mom, and all things girl are sort of taboo at school, which makes them more intriguing at home.
The only thing that makes me a little frustrated is that society tends to think this is weird. Growing up, I was all about the girl power. I have a sister, no brothers, and we were raised knowing we could do well in math and science. Before I had a boy, I laughed when Laura Bush said boys are neglected. But girls play Little League now, and they play with trucks, and they are not judged. But boys in ballet class? Or wearing an Aerial mermaid shirt? Those boys are considered weird, and that seems unfair to me. You don't have to squash girls down to lift boys up. You can be supportive all children and their choices.
