Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Ambiguous

I'm always a little taken aback when we come across a stranger in the grocery store who says "What a cute little boy". Particularly when Olivia is wearing pink. What is up with that?

Granted, she was wearing purple yesterday (with FLOWERS on her pants, ahem), and sometimes various colors of purple look rather blue, but even so. When an old man walked by and said, "Well aren't you a good little boy" I almost cringed. It's just so OBVIOUS that she's a girl! Or maybe that's just a mother's perspective.

I always thought that kids with curls (girls or boys) tend to get labeled as girls, but I've noticed that some people (especially old men) think all little kids are boys. I saw an old man call my niece a little boy once, and she has long, curly hair. So I guess it really doesn't matter how I dress her, or for that matter, whether strangers think she's a boy or girl. That is, until they realize their mistake and get all embarrassed for calling her a boy. That has happened too.

On the topic of ambiguity (huge subject change here), I've uncovered some information that makes our adoption path for baby #2 a lot less defined. We had talked about going with a certain agency in our state that we had considered before Olivia fell into our laps. Well, I just popped over to their site today to see if they had any new information since I'd last checked, and I found a few things that were rather disturbing. I called their office to confirm and, sure enough, their fees have gone up. WAY UP. Like more than $6,000 up. That's a huge chunk of change, particularly when our preliminary calculations for adoption #2 were going to be a financial stretch, even after factoring in tax credit for our first adoption.

SOOOO...I guess this means that I need to do more research. Perhaps we'll go with a different agency, or research other options for independent referrals. It seems like it will not be as neat and tidy as I had hoped. Time to let God take the wheel again, because obviously I don't have much control over The Plan.

OK, so SOME of her clothes are a little more gender-neutral than others.

4 comments:

HereWeGoAJen said...

It's not the same, but everyone gets my dogs wrong every time. They call Trin a boy and the little dog a girl. I intend to have lots of fun with this with the baby, saying things like "his name is Olivia" and seeing what they say. (Of course, mine isn't going to be named Olivia, but you get the idea.)

Lizzie said...

Yikes. $6,000 is kind of prohibitive. that's frustrating...

Unknown said...

She looks like a girl to me! Between the curls, and her clothes - she always has on "girl" colors.

Yesterday afternoon someone said "your daughter" referring to Asher. I'm going to blame it on just seeing his curls, since he was in the car seat. This is why I like "little boy" clothes versus "baby" clothes for Silas, though. Because when they are that little, there really isn't any other way to tell.

Stephanie said...

Sorry - the comment from Brian is actually from Stephanie. I didn't realize Brian was signed in when I posted it. =)