why I dress Arden in pink. and blue. (and other colours too.)

Sometimes people are surprised that Arden is a girl, especially when I don't dress her head-to-toe in pink outfits. Just the other day at library sing-along time, a few mothers asked me how old my "son" was - because she was dressed in a grey bodysuit with a white jacket. "It's a boy, right?" Well, not necessarily...

When I was pregnant last year, Ben and I decided to keep the baby's sex a secret for a long time. Why? Because 1) keeping secrets is so much fun in an oversharing society, and 2) I did not want my newborn child to be born into an exclusively pink and ruffly wardrobe, on the off chance we might have a girl (as we did). I wanted to dress my baby in a wide variety of colours (or, a so-called "gender-neutral" wardrobe), and I knew it would be a lot more achievable if we didn't tell anyone what the baby's sex was.

Take modern traditions such as engagement rings and bridal parties, for example. They were born out of random things like advertisement campaigns and attempts to confuse the evil spirits, but now they've become what we're used to without question. And so it is with the notion of pink-for-girls and blue-for-boys. There's no biological reason for girls to wear pink and boys to wear blue. It's just one of those random societal norms, an assumption, another way to easily categorise humans from the moment they're born.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally against dressing girl babies in pink, or boy babies in blue. I happily and graciously dress Arden in the pink outfits from our families and friends. But I think it's just kind of weird how society pushes these labels on people, so early on in their little lives.

When I was a child, I was always drawn to what society called "boy stuff". I wanted the "boy" toys in my McDonald's Happy Meals. I wanted to wear primary and dark colours, not pastels with ruffles at the collar. I did not want to wear dresses or heels. I sometimes played with dolls and wore pink hand-me-downs that were comfortable, but I was always more drawn to superhero and sporty stuff. Even now I occasionally buy clothes from the men's section because I prefer their styles. I'll wear bright colours and dresses when I feel like it, but I don't want my outfits to be limited by my gender.

So, I try to dress Arden in "neutral" colours - or just stuff that I like - because I'm her mother and I spend the most time looking at her throughout the day. I also like to dress her in outfits that are functional and comfortable from what I can tell. In my experience, lacy ruffles around the neck and flowery headbands are not comfortable. We dress her in those things every now and then (usually for her ten-minute monthly photoshoots), but definitely not for everyday wear.

Also. I don't think it's fair that girl-babies are socially linked to pink and sometimes purple, while boy-babies get all the other colours of the rainbow. And colours aside, I find it ludicrous that boys are associated with trucks and dinosaurs, while girls get Frozen and ballet. Girls love trucks and dinosaurs. And it goes both ways. The last time I checked, there are great male characters in Frozen; also, boys and grown men alike can be ballet dancers, and they're pretty freakin' good at it too.

If we decide to have another baby and it happens to be a boy, I will probably dress him in Arden's hand-me-downs, "girly" or not. Whether they be pink or purple or blue or grey, they are baby clothes and they look adorable on babies. Arden has a pair of pants with ballet slipper socks attached to them, and I will dress all my children in them, because leggings with socks attached to them are a no-brainer (fact: babies love kicking off their socks).

loooove these ballet-slipper pants.

I have no idea what Arden will want to wear when she gets older, but I want to encourage her to dress however she wants (as long as it's weather/event appropriate etc), and not just because it comes from the "girl" section at the store. If she wants to wear superhero hoodies, that's fine. If she wants to wear princess pajamas, that's fine too.

There is plenty of time for society to put labels on Arden. We'll get to those moments when we get to them. But for now, while she's young and untouched from all the micro-aggressions and tainted language and political/religious agendas and gendered stereotypes...

I just want to dress my little girl in a Batman shirt and take a billion pictures of her because she looks so darn cute in it.

And. What child doesn't love Batman? I sure did.

CK

7.5 months and wintertime.

Arden is now 7.5 months old, and - dare I say it? - things have been feeling much more manageable these days.

Sleep training was really the game-changer for us. For the first five months, she either needed to feed to sleep (and keep feeding...), or be carried and bounced around the house for her naps. She wasn't sleeping well, I wasn't sleeping well, and Ben had moved into the guest room (and was also "not sleeping well," he would complain to me! ha!). A few weeks before Saralyn and Amare's visit, we decided that enough was enough and began sleep training her at 5.5 months. The transition wasn't painless, but definitely worth it in the long run. We can now put her in the crib awake, she eventually falls asleep for reasonable stretches of time, and she wakes up happy. Also because we get a break, we're now able to give her more attention during her awake-time. Everyone wins! She still wakes up to feed three times a night, but it's still such an improvement from how things used to be.

solids: the next challenge.

I found this to be really fascinating though: our friends and family in the USA thought we began sleep training way too late... while Ben's Australian coworkers thought five months was way too early to start. I'm guessing this is partly due to the differences in maternity leave and social attitudes towards birth. It's common for Australian mothers to take up to a year of leave, while in the States, mothers usually go back to work only a few weeks/months after giving birth. Because of this, many American babies are kind of forced into a routine much earlier. And come to think of it, we might never have started sleep training her if it wasn't for my intensive class...

Also - winter is now upon us! Brrrr. As I've mentioned before, Melbourne winter isn't as dreary as Washington, or as eternally cold as Michigan. But we've acclimated to Victorian winters, and they feel cold to us. At least we finally get to dress Arden in some adorable colder-weather gear though! You can't get much cuter than a baby in an animal ear hoodie.

We finally caved and bought an oil heater for our bedroom (Ben and I had gotten by without one for the past two winters by huddling under the covers, but we can't really do that with Arden). And then we had to buy a humidifier, because heaters make the air really dry. Combined with the other contraptions we've recently bought (a white noise machine, baby monitor, etc...) we now have what seems like the entire inventory of a Brookstone store in our bedroom.

It's also really nice to know that Arden is capable of taking a bottle (even though she'll usually just wait for me to get home, as we learned during my intensive class). We finally felt comfortable enough to leave Arden with some friends while we went to see X-Men: Apocalypse! (Side note: I felt a little self-conscious about dressing up/cosplaying as mutant Jubilee for a movie that's already been out for a month. But on the walk to the cinema, we started spotting some familiar characters. Marvin the Martian, Waldo, Pikachu... and then we realised that it was OzCon weekend at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre! I blended right in.)

30 going on 13.

Even though a part of me misses newborn-baby Arden, 7-month old Arden is a lot of fun to be around. She smiles often at both of us (still loves to stare our friends down, though), can relax a lot longer in her stroller before having a meltdown, and loves to play stereotypical baby "games" like peekaboo and airplane. She even recently lasted for three hours (three! hours!) while I met a friend at a coffeehouse, sitting quietly in my lap, taking in the conversation.

baby's first high tea and Queen's Birthday holiday. aren't we the best parents? and yes, I MADE THOSE COOKIES!

We're now gearing up for a visit to the States next month! We'll first be meeting up with my family in Hawaii, a destination we picked due to its close(r) location to us (sorry Michiganders! Grand Rapids is four flights away from Melbourne - not ideal for babies...) and because it's, well, Hawaii. We'll then spend time in Washington with Ben's family, also hoping to see some friends and beloved places we've missed. It'll be a busy trip, but definitely worthwhile! We're excited, a little nervous (flying and traveling with children is just one of those things), but mostly we can't wait for the rest of our families to meet our little girl.

And to experience some warmer weather. We're looking forward to that, too.

CK

winter wonderland.