When we were in Auckland E's daughter had a little play stove in the kitchen which Babe just loved. She played with it every day that we were there and littered the house with the pots and pans that went with it. She loved it so much that I made a mental note to try to find something similar here in Vancouver.
Then the other day we were in Walmart and I remembered the stove and decided to check the toy isle to see if I could find one.
Of course the one E's kid has was found in a second hand store and it's way cooler than any of the crap you'd buy at Walmart. It's plastic too, but not the China-lead-paint-cheap-ass-Walmart plastic. It's the hard plastic that snaps into dangerous shards not the soft plastic that bends forever like silly putty. And E's stove makes cooking sounds and the burners light up and it's actually the colours you'd find on a real stove. It's not a pink stove with purple burners and a sparkly flower oven door with a fucking Disney princess on it or something. And it's super small and compact and fits nicely in a real kitchen. But nevertheless, I wanted to get something...
But of course all the Walmart kitchens were huge and completely unnecessary for a one year old. I know I'll have to purchase one of them later but I'm not yet at the place in my parent-life where I'm willing to buy toys that come in refrigerator-sized boxes. But then just as we were about to leave we came upon a stack of mini-kitchens on sale for $20. The kids pictured with it on the box were Babe's age and the thing wasn't too big. And better yet, it was cheap, so I wouldn't feel bad about donating it to the thrift store in six months.
So I bought it and Babe seemed to know what it was by looking at the box and she seemed excited.
But when I was looking for the kitchens we passed a row of plastic tool benches. And the first thought in my head was, "Well here's all the tool benches, where the hell are the girl's kitchens?" And that thought bugged me on the drive home. Why did I so eagerly dismiss the tool benches as being for boys? Was I already falling victim to society's gender roles and guiding my daughter more towards Barbies and fairy dresses and away from Transformers and army men? It bugged me.
It was still bugging me two hours later when the Walmart kitchen was built and Babe was happily putting cups and saucers inside the oven.
I paid for the toy and hauled it in from the truck. I spent almost two hours with 500 parts scattered in a pokey puddle at my feet. Seriously, for $20 they don't get you started on fucking anything. For $20 you get 500 pieces swept off the factory floor and some generic instructions that apply to various models of similar toys.
My tool box was out and my screwdrivers were spread all over the place. Sharp tools that I had to continuously confiscate from Babe who would snatch one as soon as she sensed my focus was elsewhere.
Babe watched me sift through a hundred little pieces to find the right one. She saw me drop screws and bump my head on the table looking for them. She heard me swear more than once. She probably noticed my butt crack.
She quizzically listened while I explained what I was doing. She played in a poopy diaper for longer than is acceptable because I was too focussed on what I was doing to stop and change her. She saw her mom do all of that. And that's pretty manly shit I was doing.
So who cares if the end result is a kitchen set instead of a tool bench - we used tools to make it. Babe is gonna grow up in a house where it's her mommy that does the blue jobs and the pink jobs. And she wouldn't be lying if she told her baby-friends that her mommy can drive a forklift in high heels. (She'd be a genius - but not a liar).
Single moms do it all. So I guess being a single mom gets me off worrying if I'm stereotyping my daughter.
P.S. While building the toy I also had dinner cooking and the laundry on.
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