I’ve always tried to keep things gender neutral & not reinforce gender stereotypes with my kids (it bugs me that we say girls can do anything boys can, but heaven forbid a boy like pink or princesses.) Anyhoo, there is no doubt that my son is all boy.
He is such a sweet little guy, and I think he will make a fantastic husband and father one day. He loves to “help” me and will follow me around with a duster or play vacuum as I clean! His third birthday was last week, and his requests were a sleeping baby bag (that was a funny typo, the sleeping baby is on my wish list), a baby carrier like I wear his brother in, and to go to “the bouncy place.”
At our house, the birthday boy or girl also gets to choose their birthday cake and dinner. So what did he choose? Steak. I don’t blame him, my hubby is a wizard with the grill. When we tried to figure out what else he wanted to have with dinner (sides, veggie) he said “bacon.” Yep. Bacon. He is a tiny little squirt of a thing that’s barely on the growth charts, but he eats like a grown man sometimes. Not sure how I’m going to feed two teenage boys; I might have to get a few more jobs. 😉
On the other hand, my daughter does love to dig in the dirt & things like that, but she is all girl and loves princesses, pink and baby dolls!
So my “you know you’re raising a boy when” for today is “he eats you out of house & home.” Ha ha.
A little poem for the road:
Roses are red.
Violets are blue. Bacon is sorta red too.
Poems are hard.
Bacon.
I’ve done my best to be neutral & not force my kids to “act like their gender,” and I think my kids have a good balance. I joke that our baby is setting other babies back 50 years & reinforcing stereotypes by saying things like “goo goo ga ga.”
Do you have any “you know you’re raising a girl/boy when” stories?
Maria wants to live in a world where cloth diapers are the norm and moms can make parenting choices without judgement. When she’s not chasing her 18, 14 and 11-year old kids around, you might find her checking out the latest gadgets, organizing something (again) or exercising in the fresh air. 
I kept things very neutral when my son was little which meant no cars. For his first birthday I bought him a Weebalot castle and the extra set of weebles I got on e-bay came with a little weeble car, not much more than a platform on wheels. He gravitated towards that thing like it was a black hole and has been obsessed with cars ever since. He does love pink though so I guess that’s something.
I think the only thing traditionally boyish I bought my son is his tool set, and we bought that because he loved his sister’s! funny because when we told family she’d love a tool set for Christmas one year, they were not happy! Family tends to only buy him cars, trucks, tools, dinosaurs etc. I like puzzles, games, blocks, pretend play stuff etc. 🙂
I have 2 sons, ages 1 and 2.5 years. They are all boy. We have a few girly toys from when I was a kid and my oldest has a baby doll that he plays with. It’s cute but he is still so much of a boy, he will rock and cuddle the baby but then he will put her to sleep by flinging her onto the floor somewhere and throwing a blanket on her face:). Both boys naturally gravitate to the blocks and balls, cars and tools though.
My two year old son has a pink doll he plays with. By plays with, I mean he lays her on his race track and runs her over with toy trucks. The funny thing is we never bought him any of the trucks or showed him how to play with them. He doesn’t even watch shows with cars. He just naturally made them violently crash. Lol.
I have 2 sisters and we grew up very feminine with the hair accessories, dolls, etc. I now have two boys and my husband has warned me that we will be taking trips to the ER (or at least once or twice), as soon as a toy is opened it is a countdown to it’s demise, and that soon enough our boys will be eating us out of our house and home. I bought a nice wooden kitchen play set with accessories and a gender neutral tea set when my oldest was 18 months. He loved them, but soon enough he gravitated towards the trucks and trains and dinosaurs. And at 4 years old, he is still all about trucks and trains and dinosaurs.
What’s funny is that for us, it’s my daughter who has had an ER visit, and who destroys everything instantly, LOL.