Blogpost The First: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS!

I've had three things on my mind this week but have lacked the energy necessary to commit them to internettia.  But I slept for ten hours last night.  I know that's excessive and that normal people thrive on seven hours.  I am not one.  I can sleep like a boss.  If I were a superhero, sleeping would be my power.  I would be Lady Sleepsalot.  Or Narcolady (which, to be fair, sounds like a-whole-nother superpower).  Sleeping is a stupid superpower.  But, hey, remember the Wonder Twins?  Shape of a Tiger (empirically awesome)!  Form of an Iceberg (what?).

Here's my other sleeping joke:  If I lead a good life I will be reincarnated as a sloth.

When I get enough sleep, I am less manifestly hilarious.

Anyhoo, what it is I'm saying is that I have the energy to commit the three topics that have consumed me to the Blogosphere.  Enjoy!

Topic the First: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS
Laney scorns and maligns anything that she deems "girly."  I confess that I could have fun with a kid that was into lipgloss and fixing her hair. Instead I have a kid who acts like I'm trying to get the nuclear codes every time I run a brush through her hair.  I like sparkles and flounces and makeup.  But this is not Laney's jam, and I'm cool with that.  I never try to talk her into dresses when we shop, although she may catch me sighing wistfully when we walk past something like this.

But it bugs me that the word Laney uses to express her derision is "girly."  I do not want the word "girly" to be her pejorative.  We have a long social history of casting female things as frivolous and silly and male things as substantive and important.   And this is one of the ways that patriarchal hegemony is sustained.  To continue in this proto-feminist vein, I am totally over gender essentialism.  I don't want my daughter thinking that the thing that makes something worthy of her disgust is that it is something for girls.  I am lobbying hard for her to abandon "girly" in favor of "princess crap."

Whenever we get Happy Meals (which is rarely. Don't judge me), and the checkout person says, "is it for a girl or a boy," I say "she'll have [whichever toy she wants]." Yesterday she wanted the Hexbug toy.  The checkout lady gave her the Barbie toy.

Apparently, McDonald's has a way to go before it catches up.