Thursday, February 24, 2011

Nap Mat Colors

Graby is now the oldest child in his class. I remember when he was the youngest (sniff, sniff - as my baby mama friend Candy would say, stop growing - stop growing). Part of growing up in class means transitioning from a bed to a nap mat. This nap mat will stay with him as long as he takes naps (so if he's anything like me, this means forever) at school.

Last week the head teacher said there were a couple of mats I could pick from or I could wait until the next shipment of nap maps were ordered. I checked out the mats - two pink and purpley ones and one camouflage.

I'm FINE with Cub having a pink and purple nap mat, but I'm not sure how he'd feel about it when he's three or four. Obviously, I have no issues with blurring the gender lines (I put barrettes in my son's hair and make him wear a tutu), but I just don't want to strap him to a pink and purple mat FOREVER. I'm also not really a fan of camo so that one was just automatically eliminated.

I became a little more conscious of my "no girly" nap mat decision when talking to another mom whose son is also transitioning to a nap map.

The following is a brief transcript of our conversation. Her son has two mommies so I instantly felt a little silly when complaining about the lack of variety in nap mat choices.

Other mommy: So, what do the nap mats look like?

Me: Well, two are pink and purple with flowers and one is camo. I'M TOTALLY FINE with Cash having a pink & purple nap mat, but I'm not sure if he'll like it when he's four. I'm going to wait till the new mats come in.

Other mommy: My son is fine with pink & purple.

Me: Gulp (that's me feeling a little silly).

I'm fine with whatever toys Cub wants to play with and whatever he decides to be so long as it makes him happy (and he goes to Stanford - that's for Aunt Liz). But I can't help but think, am I already putting some kind of weird pressure on my son to be boyish (maybe my subconscious is trying to balance out my conscious actions - you know - barrettes, pigtails, etc.)?

Oh well, I didn't think about the nap mats too long - the new ones came in yesterday and I picked one out with lots of zoo animals. I could have picked one with cars or sailboats, but I selected a nice, gender neutral zoo animal nap map.

Here's Cub today, he is begging for my lunch - a grilled cheese.


Here he is not quite eating the grilled cheese, but squishing it in between his mouth and hand.


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