Snips and Snails

Everyone knows at least some version of the old nursery rhyme about boys and girls:
Snips and snails and puppy dog tails,
That’s what little boys are made of.
Sugar and spice and everything nice,
That’s what little girls are made of.

Even at only a few months of age, there are very distinct differences between boys and girls. No-one has mistaken Ryan for a girl since he was only a few weeks old, which is a bit surprising if you look at his gorgeous long, thick, dark, curly eyelashes or his clear blue eyes.

But every other bit of him is completely male, from his “little boy” hair to his solid, athletic build, to his way of studying and analyzing everything within his reach. And, as of recently, his fascination with cars.

I’m not sure if it’s the combination of movement and noise or what, but suddenly Ryan can’t get enough of cars. When we go for walks, he’s completely indifferent to passing dogs and cats (and even turkeys, as I discovered yesterday, but that’s another story for another day), but his eyes eagerly follow every car that passes.

Now that the weather is nice most days, we’ve been spending lots of time outside, both walking with the stroller and just exploring the yard and the neighborhood. At first, I called his attention to the flowers and the leaves and the trees, encouraging him to look and touch and smell everything. But now I find that he much prefers to walk to the end of our road and watch the cars driving by on the main street. Large trucks and loud motorcycles are of special interest. He turns and watches them pass by with an incredulous look on his face. Right now, I tell him the color of each one as it goes by, sometimes adding whether it’s a truck or a motorcycle or a convertible or something else obvious and notable. No doubt it won’t be long before I’m telling him the body style and the make and model. But anything more than that and he’ll have to wait for Daddy to get home to explore the world of cars. After all, that’s totally a guy thing.