AN OPEN BOOK: Little girls and daddies

Posted 10/5/10

For the past number of months, we've been dealing with a funny situation at the Bonner house.

It all began with a lovely orange bonnet-type hat Bliss found in a consignment store and begged me to buy. Not for me — but for her dad to golf …

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AN OPEN BOOK: Little girls and daddies

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For the past number of months, we've been dealing with a funny situation at the Bonner house. It all began with a lovely orange bonnet-type hat Bliss found in a consignment store and begged me to buy. Not for me — but for her dad to golf in!Needless to say, he was thrilled with the find, as he was with the foam butterfly visor Bliss found in a thrift store with Marybeth a short time later. Being the good daddy that he is, for a month or more Brad went along with Blissy's demand that he wear one hat or the other out golfing (at least until he got in the car and out of the little one's line of vision.) Said hats have since disappeared, and I have a feeling I know who's to blame. It seems that it's not uncommon for young children to pay no attention to traditional gender stereotypes. Since the hats went missing, Bliss has also begun to make lovely (very large, very bright) necklaces for her daddy, though not for me. She doesn't understand that Brad really doesn't enjoy wearing her barrettes — and that nail polish simply isn't a guy thing.But, not surprisingly, little girls seem to be able to get their dads to do pretty much whatever they want. As such, I've been given the assignment of reminding my dear husband to remove the purple barrettes from his hair and the polish from his nails before we leave the house. And, apparently, I'm better at the assignment than my sister was at hers. When her daughter Sloane, now 5, was Blissy's age, she also thought her dad was her own personal dress-up daddy. One day, Sloane painted her dad's fingernails a flattering shade of pink. Keep in mind that Tom, a horseshoer and cowboy, has broken nearly all of his fingers, resulting in phalanges that refuse to straighten. Let's just say his hands are far from his best feature.Tom, after his manicure, apparently got side-tracked and at some point during the day, found himself buying horseshoes at Linton's. You can imagine the look on the clerk's face when he or she reached to take Tom's money from his gnarled hand and glimpsed the pretty pink nails. Unfortunately, Tom remembered the manicure at about the same time. He wasted no time getting to his vehicle, where he promptly called his little girl.“Sloane,” he said, “it takes an awful tough man to buy horseshoes with pink fingernails.”Tough guy, maybe, but it's just what good daddies do.

For the past number of months, we've been dealing with a funny situation at the Bonner house.

It all began with a lovely orange bonnet-type hat Bliss found in a consignment store and begged me to buy. Not for me — but for her dad to golf in!

Needless to say, he was thrilled with the find, as he was with the foam butterfly visor Bliss found in a thrift store with Marybeth a short time later.

Being the good daddy that he is, for a month or more Brad went along with Blissy's demand that he wear one hat or the other out golfing (at least until he got in the car and out of the little one's line of vision.) Said hats have since disappeared, and I have a feeling I know who's to blame.

It seems that it's not uncommon for young children to pay no attention to traditional gender stereotypes. Since the hats went missing, Bliss has also begun to make lovely (very large, very bright) necklaces for her daddy, though not for me. She doesn't understand that Brad really doesn't enjoy wearing her barrettes — and that nail polish simply isn't a guy thing.

But, not surprisingly, little girls seem to be able to get their dads to do pretty much whatever they want. As such, I've been given the assignment of reminding my dear husband to remove the purple barrettes from his hair and the polish from his nails before we leave the house.

And, apparently, I'm better at the assignment than my sister was at hers. When her daughter Sloane, now 5, was Blissy's age, she also thought her dad was her own personal dress-up daddy. One day, Sloane painted her dad's fingernails a flattering shade of pink. Keep in mind that Tom, a horseshoer and cowboy, has broken nearly all of his fingers, resulting in phalanges that refuse to straighten. Let's just say his hands are far from his best feature.

Tom, after his manicure, apparently got side-tracked and at some point during the day, found himself buying horseshoes at Linton's.

You can imagine the look on the clerk's face when he or she reached to take Tom's money from his gnarled hand and glimpsed the pretty pink nails.

Unfortunately, Tom remembered the manicure at about the same time. He wasted no time getting to his vehicle, where he promptly called his little girl.

“Sloane,” he said, “it takes an awful tough man to buy horseshoes with pink fingernails.”

Tough guy, maybe, but it's just what good daddies do.

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