The Princess Side of Boys?

Before I had kids, I believed there were not a whole lot of differences between boys and girls. Coming from me, the person who grew up with two of the boy-est, jockiest, guys guys, brothers in the planet – this is pretty funny. I mean, I knew there was the addiction to sports (hello – many years of nothing but football, college football, high school football and ESPN Sports Center on our television in our family room.) I knew they dealt with their frustration differently. (My mom had patched many a hole in our walls after a particularly bad football game loss. Or do not even get me started on the video game tournaments that ended up with the victor gaining the right to fart on the others head.) I knew they had much comfort in their bodies. (My brothers never felt the need to AHEM cover themselves up when my friends came over. My friends found this funny. I spent many years screaming at my brothers to ‘for the love of god, put some CLOTHES on already!') And I knew they had some shall we say, different bathroom manners. (I mean, really, could you either pick up the toilet seat or as least work on your aim, please?)

But yet despite my upbringing with my beloved brothers and all they taught me, I still believed that as young uns, boys and girls played the same, acted the same and were no more different, but for their individual personalities. Heh.

Last night, we celebrated our neighbor's fourth birthday with pizza and cake. She is a sweet, adorable little girl. After devouring the cute Disney Princess cake, attention turned to the opening of the presents. One by one, she opened up her parent’s birthday presents. Disney Princess jacket. Disney Princess shoes. A dress up Ariel wedding dress. A dress up Ariel pink frilly gown. The Disney Princess figurine pack.

During the present opening, neither Aidan or Brennan said one word. Not a peep. Normally, they yell out “wow” or “I want that too!” or “can I play with that?” They stood off to the side, watched the presents as they were opened and looked both confused and bored. The girls were hooting and hollering in their enthusiasm. “The Disney wedding dress?” “NO WAYYYY!” “Can I try it on?” “Can I?” The birthday girl turned to show Aidan the pink dress and he gave a polite smile, a shrug and a look at me that said, “Where in the hell are the real presents?”

After the presents were opened, the girls rushed off to try on the new princess outfits. Aidan and Brennan stood alone amidst a sea of princessness. After a few moments, they started to play with the Disney princess figurines. I smiled and thought, “See, boys can enjoy the girly stuff, even for just a moment.” I walked closer to watch them play.

Apparently, Cinderella had staged an evil coup to take over the empire from Snow White and Belle. Ariel was going to ambush her to make her “dead” before the dwarfs found their secret stash of “guns” and “tried to make them dead.” Then there was much fighting amongst the princesses with Cinderella delivering quite a blow to Snow White, who countered by smashing her in the head with Belle’s foot. Lots of chasing, lots of fighting and whole lot of smashing. It was quite a spin on the traditional Disney princess play.

Sure, boys play just like girls. Yep.