A Girl's World

I am happy to announce that after 4 years and 9 months of having children, there is definitely now a little girl in the house. Faced with two sons, I have had to master such challenges as remembering the names of all the trains on Thomas the Tank Engine, being able to correctly identify the difference between a range of boring vehicles (e.g. dumper truck, digger, bulldozer), stopping laughing at the strangeness of male genitalia (at least out loud) and developing an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Power Rangers - with varing degrees of success. But now, after 9 and a half months of life, I can confirm that Madeleine is showing clearly "different" behaviour from her beloved siblings. She is very attached to a doll for starters. This is a doll that I stupidly bought for Dominic when Max was born, thinking he could look after it while I looked after Max. Okay, okay, dumb idea. Anyway the doll has waited and its day has come: she loves it, hugs it, rushes over to it and along with her favourite thumb seems to find that there is nothing like a good cuddle with it to pass the time of day. I'm not quite sure this is so pleasing to me - I wasn't, I don't think, that much of a girly girl myself - but it just is.