It's too girlish for me.

"I felt disgusted today because I had to wear a ballerina outfit." This is what my daughter told me when I picked her up from school yesterday.

"Why did you feel disgusted?" I asked.

"Because it's too girlish for me," she replied.

I said, "You know, you can take this not wanting to be girlish thing too far."

"I can?"

"Yes, you can."

Somehow she's gotten it in her mind all things girl are bad. I don't mind that she's interested in things that are stereotypically perceived as being enjoyed by boys, but I am concerned that she might be equating girlishness with undesireable. That's not good. What's really interesting about all of it is that even though she thinks she just likes "boy" things, she tweaks them in a decidely feminine manner. For instance, the whole dragon obsession. She wants to play with the dragons, but she wants to play with them in a way where there's a mother and a father and a baby dragon, and the mother dragon and father dragon take care of the baby dragon. So really, she's just substituting the dragons for baby dolls, which is fine. No worries there. We got her these Fire & Ice dragons figures that come in eggs, so they hatch. She likes to take one of the empty eggs and put her stuffed Norbert (of Harry Potter fame) doll into it and then pretend it's hatching and that she's its mommy. So, I'll be watching the situation to see how it develops.

In other news, my sister called me last night because she just put our Christmas presents in the mail and she wanted to vent a bit about how our parents keep making her feel guilty about the fact that she doesn't often visit them. I love my parents, but they play the guilt card with the skill of a sharpshooter. Not that they'd ever fess up to it. Of course, I think a little bit of the guilt is warranted on my sister's side because she doesn't get to see them often. But for all the complaining they do, my parents could just as easily go out to see my sister if they really wanted. So what we've got here is a battle of wills between them and I think they're all just trying to see who cracks first. Personally, I'm getting tired of the pettiness coming from both sides. Life is too short to try and "win out" in a battle like this because, in the end, nobody wins. The end result is that no one gets to see anyone and that's that.