Those of you that have been reading this blog for awhile might recall the ugly plastic rat that my husband gave Lilith and how unfortunately she loved it. I started to hate this rat when Lilith discovered that I have a strong aversion to said rat and started to chase me around the house with it. I begrudgingly obliged. Then there was the time we were at a very crowded Red Robin and she started looking around frantically while saying, "Rat! where is Rat? Rat! Rat where are you!"
Yep that was fun. So recently she started wrapping the rat in a small blanket and referring to it as, "Baby Rat". I don't know why but this REALLY bothered me. It horrified me one evening however when she presented me with the blanket wrapped rat and told me that baby rat was hungry and proceeded to to try to tell me that I needed to give baby rat boobie (breastfeed it). Yes, go ahead and laugh. It would be funny for me too it it wasn't actually happening to ME! I went out the next day determined to find something to take the place of baby rat. Since I am against forcing any kind of gender behavior on any child, I didn't want to buy her a "baby" doll so I found this line of stuffed animals that are made by Fisher Price. They coo (the tiger I got her purrs when held), make eating noises when fed, yawn, their eyes open and close, etc. They even come with a bottle, blanket, and wear a changeable diaper. I know it is still a little too much like mommy training but at least it isn't a rat and it has a bottle so it can eat from it, hopefully this will leave me and my breasts out of the equation! We even got Baby Kitty a bassinet for it to sleep in next to Lilith's bed. She loves it. She gets up first thing in the morning and feeds it, feeds it after her bath, feeds it after her own meals. She checks its diaper reporting to us if baby kitty is wet or dry. Then she moved Baby Rat into the bassinet too. She takes turns feeding them both. I am trying not to be too disturbed by this. I am also questioning the whole nature verse nurture aspect of the whole situation. I have made sure that I haven't tried to push her towards "girl" toys and behavior. Yes, I dress her in lots of pinks and cutsie clothes but I SWEAR that is where the girlieness stops. I bought her a train set as well as a toy kitchen for her birthday this year. I make sure I buy her what ever she is drawn too weather it is giant t-Rex dinosaurs or stuffed animals. I swear I have no idea where she learned the whole parenting behavior unless she is recreating her own experiences with baby rat and baby kitty. Maybe she learned it at school. I just hope it is a phase, a cute one at times granted, but hopefully a short fascination before she moves on to something less disturbing like Lego's or puzzles.
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