There are girls.....and there are boys

So, way back, when little boy first learnt to move - shifting around the floor before he finally began to crawl - his primary motive was to get hold of the ball hidden at the bottom of the toy box under dolls clothes, tea sets and polly pockets. It was a pretty strong hint that despite two older sisters and a mum that looked after him the majority of the time he was, beyond all doubt, a BOY.

Since then there have been many occasions when the difference between little boy and the girls has been evident (the climbing - onto chairs, onto tables, over barriers, over walls ...., the assumption that anything remotely round must be a ball (tomatoes, apples, stones you name it, it can and will be kicked) and the almost primate glee when football is on the tv....to name just a few).

Most of the time though I, as I suspect most parents do, treat the children more or less the same despite the difference in sex. I propose the same activities and they stamp their own individuality on it as would two or more children of the same sex. Cycling in the garden comprises of the two girls riding up and down the terrace avoiding any obstacles and one kamikazee nutter hurtling down towards the terrace from the top of the garden aiming gleefully for anything or anyone that gets in his way. A play doh sessions results in two neat piles of dough formed into little cakes or pizzas and a huge pile of as much dough as possible in the shape of a ball and painting can deliver two "works of art" and a very wet and covered in paint little boy!

Of course some of these comparisons are slightly harsh as little boy is younger than the girls but one activity that the girls have always loved, from being very small, is cooking. I suspect they like it for slightly different reasons ( a love of helping and being grown up for one and a love of cakes for the other!) but love it they do. So last Friday afternoon when I proposed to little boy that we would make a cake together I was caught unprepared for his "NO". Not to be defeated though I told him we would make a chocolate cake (little boy really loves chocolate). But even that couldn't convince him. He just wasn't having it.

I persevered anyway thinking that eventually he would join in (even if just to lick the bowl) but little boy had different plans. You see it had been raining and we have builders working round the side which means that a great big digger has been driving up and down our drive numerous times a day. That coupled with rain makes for big muddy puddles which is exactly where little boy planned to spend his afternoon and no amount of chocolate krispie cake making was going to stop him.

So little boy spent the afternoon getting as muddy as possible, the delight only increasing when he realised that riding his bike through the puddles caused splashing and a wobbly effect on the rider. The girls came home from school, tiptoed round the puddles whilst screaming that Luca should not come near them at any cost in case he got them dirty, helped me clear away the cake making detritus and then ate the chocolate krispies.