“Wake up, Mama! It’s 6AM and I love trucks.” Photo: Ariel Brewster
When I was pregnant, we didn?t find out if we were expecting a boy or a girl. We went for a gender-neutral nursery theme (lots of trees, bunnies, bears and wood grain), and the newborn clothes we amassed pre-baby were a muted rainbow of white, yellow, grey, mint-green and purple. (With lots of chevrons. So much chevron.) We asked for books, and not toys, at our co-ed shower, and ended up with a relatively progressive, sexless library of Sophie the Giraffe, hippo-related Sandra Boynton titles, and many, many books about either fruit or farm animals. Prior to becoming a parent, I eyed the expensive designer wooden toys that promise all-organic, enlightened educational fun for your liberated, un-gendered child?certainly nothing having to do with princesses or Paw Patrol. Our son Cal, now almost 20 months old, had other ideas. Right now he?s going through a major trucks, trains and tractor phase (before that it was all balls?any kind?all the time). He also likes pretending things are screwdrivers and going around to all his toys and furniture, announcing he?s going to ?fix it.? He does have a baby doll he likes to ?wash? (er, drown) in the bathtub, and a play kitchen where he can spend a solid 20 minutes preparing a meal or flinging all the plastic food onto the floor with glee. But he spends a lot more time shooting balls around the kitchen with a mini hockey stick his dad made for him befor...