This week, a few photos of Sydney playing on a big slide set. My goodness, does she look tall in the above photo – and she is tall, for a two-and-a-third year old. (And of course, dressed like she is in these pics, strangers always assume she’s a boy.)
Anyhow, Sydney loves slides; she loves climbing. Anything dangerous enough or high enough to make adults nervous, Sydney is in favor of.
It helped a lot that there were bigger kids there – I worrywarted that the bigger kids would ruin Sydney’s good time, but in fact Sydney likes being able to watch the bigger kids and take cues from them for how to use the equipment.
Two of the bigger kids saw me taking photos and insisted on posing for pictures – and the pictures came out great, in fact. Kim got their dad’s email address and sent him the photos later.
We were in Costco last week, and they had this gigantic play house set up, which for only $2800 I could have purchased and set up on my own lawn. Sydney was enthralled by the house, and immediately went into it and shut all the doors from the inside. But then other kids, all of them older than Syd, started to join her in there, and that made it really great. Those kids treated Sydney like a toy doll – if she fell down, they’d get to play “pick the baby up and comfort it,” although in fact Sydney needed neither help standing up nor comfort. If Sydney lay down on the bench and pretended to be asleep (a favorite play activity of hers – she makes these terrible fake snoring noises), then another kid would pet her on the head. And then the bigger kids taught Sydney how to play “ring around the rosey.”
All of which Sydney adored; she really loves attention from older children.
It’s nice to see that children are not, in fact, all evil, and can spontaneously play with each other in nice ways, so that even the smallest one has a good time.
My name is Bond. Sydney Bond.
The intensity of Sydney’s emotions now that she’s nearly two and a half amazes me. When she’s sad, her heart is utterly broken. When she’s happy, however, she’s ecstatic. It makes me tired just to think of being her.
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Why do they think she’s a boy? Don’t the flowers give it away?
As my mom would say, she’s starting to look like a real kid.
I admit I was wondering whether stereotypical boy wear might be different in Amp’s neck of the woods than it is here. Not that there’s anything wrong with boys wearing pink flowers or girls being mistaken for boys. Always been kinda puzzled that that’s about the most shocking comment you can make to a parent: “Oh, no! He’s a BOY! Not a girl!”
As per nearly everything, there is kid’s wear and girl’s wear.
You know, I find that I really look forward to these Monday picture shows. Now that my girls are grown (or nearly so), I realize how much I miss those days when they could spend hours of pure bliss playing on something simple like a slide or playhouse.
Sydney’s a good-looking kid. I can’t believe she’s only two and a half — she looks so much more grown-up than that!
“Don’t the flowers give it away?”
My conclusion on this subject after having raised two kids is that the only things people will pay attention to when making spur-of-the-moment gender decisions are the color pink, hair length, and jewelry. I’ve had my daughter dressed in all purple, with flowers, and been mistaken for a boy because of her short hair. At age 11, she finally got tired of it and grew her hair out. Now no one mistakes her for a boy, unless she’s wearing a hat.
Holy Crow! Sydney’s all growed up! Where’d all that hair come from?
Can’t wait to see her again sometime. I think she’ll be my height by then. :)
Adore the shoes…
Oh, I almost said, “What a Beautiful little boy!” Ah, it makes more sense that she is a girl, but she is still uncompromisingly gorgeous! Look at that smile! Ahhhhhhhhhh! After all this Duke drama and immigration nonsense, it did my heart good to see such innocent beauty. Thanks!
Great expressions you captured. I especially like the surfin’ bond picture :)