Sakya

Little girls are so interesting. They have such life in them.

Not that I don't think my little boy has life in him. Fellan has LIFE! in him. Marxo has life. It's a subtle difference.

Fellan had tee ball tryouts this past weekend. Yes, I know, you're asking yourself, "Tee ball tryouts? Isn't he only six?" Yes, you read it correctly. And don't get me started. Luckily, for us, though, we're in the non-competitive league. The other is way worse.

Anyway, he had such a great time. He ran the bases, he "fielded" the ball, he hit the ball, he was in tee ball heaven for an hour and a half during tryouts. He was all boy for that hour and a half and absolutely loved it.

And then he had to come home and play with his little sister - who is such a girl. She likes to play mind games with him and will intentionally disagree with him just to make him mad. Or she'll refuse to play one small part of whatever imaginary thing they're playing and it will send him into a tizzy. She gets great joy from this and I definitely wonder what the future holds for us.

I never considered myself a very girly-girl. I took great pride in it, in fact.

I grew up in the times of Title IX and I remember distinctly singing "Anything you can do, I can do better" whenever I was told by someone that I couldn't do something due to my gender. (which was usually my dad - but in a completely joking way and I always knew that he meant the exact opposite.)

Marxo, on the other hand, is growing up in what seems to be a girly-girl time. Princesses are back in full-swing. She only wears pink and purple and she absolutely loves to dress up in her best and most beautiful clothing. It makes me worried sometimes at how girly she's becoming because I know that girls can be absolutely horrible to each other.

But, I'm trying to embrace (for the time being) this girly life that she has in her. She loves to write her name in "cursive" which actually just means adding curly-q's to all the parts of the letters in her name.

She also loves putting on makeup and having me paint her fingernails for her. Grammy gave her some eyeshadow for Christmas and she applies it with abandon (if given the chance) until she looks like she's been in a 12-round boxing match and ended up the loser.

Since she's only five years old, she didn't have any kind of makeup case in which to keep the eyeshadow, so I found something suitably small (I didn't want to encourage the purchase of anything additional!) that came with some lip gloss for her. All day yesterday, she applied and re-applied lip gloss and then talked with a fixed smile and tried not to make her "lipstick" come off. I don't even wear lipstick, so I'm not sure where she learned this behavior! Some things just seem to be innate.

She has also decided recently to change her name. It happened right before Christmas when she started calling herself "Jana" but when she wrote her new name, she would write it "Jena". And now all the little girls at the preschool have chosen pseudonyms. Brittany, Jessica, and Caroline are a few of the names that have been chosen.

Marxo decided however, to re-change her name to "Sakya". Which she pronounces "sah-kee-ya". I'm not sure where she came up with that name, but it's a pretty name, even if I do want to break out into song every time I say it. (Just try saying it and see if you don't start singin, "Zaccheus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he...")

Yesterday she asked me if I was skinny. I told her, "I guess comparitively speaking, yes, I'm skinny. Why do you ask?"

"Because you look skinny to me."

Well, I don't care what she calls herself. That little girl is a keeper.