Question: What do you get when you cross a baby doll and a t-rex?

Fact: A giraffe.

It's interesting to me to watch Rachel play. She's definitely a girl. Not that we didn't know that...

All of her little games involve families. Today she was playing with a little giraffe (that Aunt Nicky gave to her when she was born) and a tyrannosaurus-rex. The dinosaur was holding the giraffe and the giraffe was giving it kisses and saying, "I want Daddy!"

Then she threw both toys down and running out of the room (and away from me) saying, "I need Mommy!"

She came back with her baby doll, who acted as the giraffe's Mommy.

Watching her play teaches me so much about how she perceives life. For example, the mothers in all her scenarios sleep a whole lot, which bothers the baby toy to no end. It seems as soon as the Daddy enters the scene the Mommy finds an excuse to go to sleep and then the baby starts crying, "No sleeping, Mommy!"

Hmmmm...could that possibly be representative of our current situation?

As soon as Andrew comes home I usually do say something like, "I'm going to lie down for a few minutes."

I'm tired. What can I say?

The other night I went to bed at 7:00. Actually, Andrew sent me to bed after I sat down on the couch and promptly fell asleep. I think that's the first time I've ever gone to bed before Rachel her whole life long (excluding when she didn't have a sleep schedule at all, but she doesn't remember that) and she acted like her world was falling apart. Anyway...

It's fun to see her acting out families all the time. It seems to me that families are naturally important to girls. I know Bridget's daughter, Miriam, likes to act out families. When I was younger I always annoyed David when we played together because my cars could talk to each other and lived in families. His? Didn't. Neither did his dinosaurs. Weird, I know. I'm just glad he was patient enough to deal with family dynamics in play as well as in real life. Otherwise, who would I have played with?

I asked Andrew about this and he said that he didn't remember making his toys play in families.

I guess it doesn't matter what kind of toys you give to your children--dolls, dinosaurs, or cars--girls are going to play the role of nurturer and boys are going to play the role of hunter/gatherer.

This isn't to say that Rachel's dinosaurs don't suddenly turn predator and destroy everything in their path, because they do...it's just that most often they are peaceful father figures.