My little boy...

Yes, Eva still is determined to be a little boy. I don't quite know what to think about it or do about it. I tell her often that I am sad because I always wanted a little girl. She tells me that, "I'll be a girl tomorrow." But "tomorrow" never seems to actually materialize. Unless of course, it is to her benefit. For example, I am told by her daycare teacher that when she tells them "Girls, come help me ... while the boys are ..." that Eva insists she is a girl so she can do whatever it is that the girls are doing. This confirms my suspicions that being a boy is more about her strategy to get to do whatever she wants then it is about really being a boy.

She's been making up her own songs a lot lately also--Eva sings constantly. This morning she made up a song about a fly that was sad because a spider went down the bed. It was an engaging tune, albeit with somewhat strange lyrics. She also held a lengthy discourse with the cat regarding how to properly shake hands. I've been told that at daycare, she is a little teacher who is fond of telling the other kids exactly what to do, and how to do it. This morning she brought some pebbles and a shell (that we collected on the beach in Seattle) to school with her today. She wanted to show her friends how she could build a house for the clam with the rocks. She is re-creating her beach experience, I think.

So, Eva covers her mouth when she giggles. It is very much a Chinese cultural thing, that not a single person in our home or circle of friends does. I find it interesting, and really cute. The question I have is this: Is it genetic, or did she observe the behavior as a baby and it influenced her enough that she still does it? Eva does notice her race also, sort of...more then I expected her to at 3 years old, anyway. A few weeks ago she informed me that she was tan, and her friend wasn't. I asked her about me, and she told me that I was tan too. I'm not sure if it's misunderstanding or wishful thinking. Also, we ran into another family at Walmart who has a Chinese daughter that Eva had never met before. We didn't say anything about her daugthter's race, adoption, etc. As we walked away, Eva looks at me and says, "She is Chinese like me." It wasn't a question. I didn't realize that she had put it together so much. She is noticiing, but she is also accepting that it isn't anything strange to have a family of mixed race...to her it is completely normal. I think it helps that we know other families who are the same as us.