"Sugar and spice and everything nice"

In 2007, when I found out I was having a boy, I was momentarily flummoxed. I wasn't sure that I knew how to raise a boy. I have one sister and 6 girl cousins so girls I knew I could handle. Just dress them up in pink frilly dresses with black patent leather shoes and big bows and you're good to go (or at least that's what I had gleaned from my childhood). But boys? What do they play with? What kind of books do they read? That second question really troubled me. As an avid reader, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to share my childhood favorites ("Anne of Green Gables", "A Little House in the Big Woods") with my little boy. Thankfully, God blessed me with a little boy who not only loves cars, trucks, dinosaurs, and basketball but loves his Mom enough to humor her about her book choices.

The second time around I was excited to be find out we were having a girl. One of each! Finally, someone to buy pink things for! Cute headbands, fancy pants underwear and pink, pink, pink and more pink! I'm sure I thought my daughter was going to be a gentle, dainty, little flower. Well, 15 months later, my daughter looks amazing in pink and wears those frilly dresses with no complaint but she is no gentle flower. She is bold, funny, and turns the iPod on so she can dance. She knows she's cute and uses it to her advantage. When its time for her bottle she hides behind the table and peeks around the corner to see if you're looking. She is more adventurous and daring then W ever was. Case in point: the diaper pail. 

W had one in his room for three years and NEVER once played with it. Never tried to put anything in it other then diapers. With the latest addition of Baby K to the daytime Parry family, we moved the diaper pail into the hallway. Over the last few days, I've caught E playing with the handle, pulling it up and down. Yesterday, she shoved W's plastic underwear into the pail but I caught her before she pulled the handle. Tonight, as I was getting rid of her diaper I noticed that there was a car already in there. I opened up the pail and inside I found these:    

She's like a squirrel, hiding her nuts in the tree. I had to stick my hand in the pail, more the once, to get them all out. I sighed, shook my head, and cleaned the toys. On a positive note, bleach does not ruin leapfrog fridge magnets. Fast forward to end of bath time. I get the child into her pajamas, comb her hair, and let her roam free while I get her cereal ready. I call her name and get no response. As with most kids, silence with E means trouble. I look down the hallway and where is she? Standing in front of the diaper pail with a car in each hand and three cars already in the pail! So as I'm pulling cars out and saying "no! no! no!" she's giving me a look that says, "but Mom! it's so much fun to shove my brother's cars into the diaper pail so that you have to dig around among the urine-filled diapers to find them!" And I thought raising a girl was going to be easy.