There used to be a time when our youngest one was completely obsessed with My Little Pony.... she WAS Princess Twilight Sparkle and she just couldn't get enough of them! Sadly (or fortunately) those days have now passed and she is really into toy cars and dinosaurs. She is an funny little girl... she has interests that more resemble the stereotypical "boy" interests, especially in comparison to her older sister who was always more "girly" in her tastes. That said, neither of them are really completely into the marketing boy/girl niches... they have interests across the board.
Anyway, the little one cranks out if we call her a girl... but she is also convinced that her mother and her sister aren't girls either! She prefers to be known as a "tuff guy"! I think it is something from one of her TV shows, Gigantosaurous... where the dinosaur is a "tuff guy"... or something like that! It's pretty funny... but we tell her that anyone can be a tuff guy, even (or especially...) girls!
So, this morning the older sister and I helped her put together her Christmas Santa present. A dinosaur encampment Playmobil set. I'm a bit up in the air about Playmobil... it is sort of better for the younger kids... but it isn't really as long lasting as LEGO. However, it really has a set form... which LEGO doesn't really when it finally gets broken apart. The younger kids don't have always the patience or desire to free-build.... our older child wanted to always recreate the original set whenever it broke apart, and only recently has she started to free build.
So, after a couple of hours... it is finally done. Of course, it would have been quicker to just build it in a few minutes, but we always encourage the girls to do as much of the building as possible... it is their toys after all! The older one always loved doing this... but the younger one is a bit more of a struggle in this regard. She tends to give up too easily, and will ask one of us to do it... but with a bit of gentle coaxing and flat out refusing to do everything for her... well, we got there in the end!
Our older child got some nice roller-blades for Christmas. She has been pretty into ice skating, and so the roller-blading is a nice complement for that. For the last year, she had been using some hand-me-downs from neighbours.... so, she was incredibly excited to have her own skates that actually fit her properly!
Meanwhile, we all got books... a continuing tradition for the family. Richard Scarry, Calvin and Hobbes, Roald Dahl were all featured authors in the sacks this year! I don't think we are going to see much of our older child in the coming days... whenever she gets a book, she is nose deep into it until she finishes! Now, if we could only encourage the younger one to do that... she would always rather go out and kick a ball!
Hope you all had a nice Christmas... even if it was a smaller event than usual!
