Basketballs and Baby Dolls

We began our adventures into family life with five wonderful, energetic boys.  Our floor was littered with Lego, Hot wheels, and our driveway covered with balls and bikes.   Then we had three girls in a row.  Now our floors are covered with dolls, tiny clothes, strollers, burp pads and blankets.  Until recently, all the baby dolls were "girl babies."  I gave the girls some of our old newborn baby clothes and cute little head bands to use on the dolls.  We did have one boy sleeper that fit on Raggedy Andy, but that was the extent of male dolls in our house. 

 Almost three months ago, we brought David home from the hospital.  Having a boy baby in the house again is quite the novelty.  The girls have just as much fun dressing him as they did when Sophia was the baby in our house.  They went shopping with Grandma and brought home the funnest, cutest little clothes, including a Superman onesie.  David was a very tiny baby and could only wear the very smallest clothes we had, so we had a whole dresser full of cute things that he would not fit for quite a while.  One afternoon, all the baby dolls in the house instantly changed into boy babies.  The girls had so much fun dressing them in David's things.  They even came up with new names for the new boys.  Jackley (a girl doll) became Jason. Isabelle became John.  It was kind of funny to be dressing David (the real baby) and occasionally have to undress a doll in order to put the outfit on him that I wanted. 

Now, I do need to clarify something.  Just because we had lots of boys first doesn't mean they didn't play with dolls.  In fact, a number of years ago one of the boys wanted a doll of his own quite badly, so we took a special trip to Walmart to pick out a doll for him.  He said he wanted to practice being a Dad.  We found the perfect doll and put her in our cart.  On our way to the checkout we saw a man we knew and he commented on the doll and asked if we were buying it for a friend or cousin's birthday.  He said something about how he knew the doll couldn't be for someone at our house because we had all boys.  WRONG!!!  I couldn't have been more thrilled that one of our boys wanted a doll to practice being a father.  Why not?  Our girls all want to practice being mothers.  Another one of our sons asked for a doll as well.  In fact he wanted a doll and the bottles and clothes and a baby bed.  That was his big Christmas present that year and he couldn't have been happier.  I think we need to encourage that nurturing side of our boys as well as the more physical, manly side.  Fatherhood is as much a holy calling for our boys to prepare for and look forward to, as motherhood is for our girls.