Right before my daughter was born, I got worried, and not just because the nurses kept telling me that she had an exceedingly large head circumference. I was worried because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make her girly. As a tomboy myself, I knew she wasn’t going to get the girly from me. She definitely wasn’t going to get it from her two older brothers, who were already old enough to find burping hysterical and farting near-fatal. I didn’t even have any friends with little girls, so the best I could let myself hope for was Tatum O’Neal in the Bad News Bears.
Six years later, and I can reveal something that not even scientists are aware of. Or maybe they are, I can’t be bothered to check. There is a gene – called the Girly Gene – which can determine girliness just as sure as eye color is determined by, uh, the eye-color gene. This must be the case, because this little creature that I am raising exhibits enough girliness to make even Zsa Zsa Gabor blush. But I’ll let the evidence speak for itself.
A few nights ago, she asked me if she could set the table for dinner. Naturally, I agreed. As my husband was away, the meal I was preparing for myself and the kids was informal, to say the least – vegetarian hot dogs, peas, and macaroni & cheese. But this didn’t discourage her – she set a table that included a centerpiece of four candles, one for each of us to light, and wine glasses full of water. Then she disappeared to her bedroom.
When she reappeared, her outfit could only have been put together by the girly gene. She was wearing a full-length pink bridesmaid dress with butterflies embroidered in the bodice, a matching butterfly necklace, high heels, and full-length pink gloves with fur trim. And if that wasn’t enough, she had styled her hair and placed a tiara perfectly on top of her head. I didn’t know whether to laugh or genuflect.
In typical male fashion, the boys came through and… didn’t even notice. They sat down and started shovelling in food, not even realizing that they were doing so in total darkness, until she passed them a lighter and insisted they light their candle. And only when she burst into song halfway through the meal did they look up and notice her outfit, but they only rolled their eyes and then carried on eating. They must have learned that from their dad.
If that’s not enough to convince you, though, last night the girly gene revealed itself once more. My daughter had set up a shop in her bedroom. The customer (her) was trying to buy the contents of the entire shop. The greedy shopkeeper (also her) wanted infinity dollars for it. Frustrated that she didn’t have infinity dollars, my daughter spent the next hour creating her own currency – ten crisp and beautifully colored infinity dollar bills. If that’s not a girly solution to a girly problem, then you tell me what is – and yes, that includes the fact that one infinity dollar bill obviously wasn’t enough…
