Play time

playing at French grandparents with his cousin--& the giant plastic firetruck

Little S is usually playing with cars lately and using the voices that I had always thought Little girls use to play with dolls. I thinks it's cute that he play acts with his cars and trains. It's probably thanks to movies and books like Cars, Thomas the Train and Bob the Builder that gives personality to little boy's toys. I think it's healthy that he has something to act out these things with.

His play often seems to be about dominance issues, such as "Lofty you got to sleep now!" and "You better not do that--you'll get hurt." It sounds like things I say to him all the time. I wonder why he wants to reinact these particular events. It's really interesting to stand back and eavesdrop.

I think I've mentioned this book before but it's so good for anyone who has sons. It's called Real Boys. I've read it several times and it's helped me understand the psychology of boys. It debunks a lot of the macho stereotypes of boys becoming men and helps understand the delicate balance between helping them live up to that image alongside their peers while giving them the nurture they crave. Boys need nurture as much as girls but we tend to cut them off from that at an early age because society pressures us to do it in ways we don't readily see. I'm pretty liberal with Little S and I let him play with make-up, carry purses around and cook but I'm still guilty of a lot of the things the book mentions like assuming he can handle things that I wouldn't necessarily assume a girl of the same age could handle. I just love psychology books for putting issues into a perspective that I wouldn't ordinarily think about or see.