Maxine?

Max is a boy's boy. There has never been any mistaking Max for a girl, even when he was an infant and I have never been one that cared too much about gender rolls but sometimes...things just happen.

 Max was in daycare and had been in this daycare since he was 4 months old. They were wonderful and really did a great job with Max. He was working on the whole potty training thing and when he had an accident it tended to be a gusher! We always made sure that he had a change of clothes and he did have them on that faithful day. I guess he was having a really good time playing and that was when he had a tidal wave accident. All of the sudden he was soaked to the bone. They cleaned him up and dressed him in the "extra" clothes that he had and he went on with his playing and having fun. Tidal waves often will fool people because they will send a huge wave into the shore and people will think that the worst has past. Little do they know that building off shore is a monster that makes the first wave look like the wake from a small boat. This day would fool everyone and the events that followed are stranger and much more scary than any horror novel. The monster hit right after lunch time, devastating all in it's path. Max rose from his chair to regain his footing after the massive wave and the daycare workers sped to his rescue. They cleaned him up again only this time there was a problem. Max had already used his "extra" clothes and they needed something to put on him. They dug through a box filled with clothes and could not find anything for him to wear....except.... a denim jumper. The workers hesitated but were forced to use the jumper to cover his naked body so that he could return to the play time. Max was returned to where the other kids were playing and the older ones noticed something that was not right about what Max was wearing. "Ms. Tonya, those are flowers on Max." one child reported, looking confused. "He's a boy!!" As I had said, Max was very much a boy and he hadn't really noticed that the garb was festooned with pink and orange flowers and had a feminine form to it, he was almost 3 years old and this just didn't register for him yet. It was the other kids who pointed it out and made sure that Max understood that he was "dressed like a girl!" I went to pick Max up, as was the routine. "I am sooooo sorry Renee!" was the greeting I received when I entered the door. I looked at the daycare manager with that tilted head look, like a dog gives you when you ask if they want to go outside. "Sorry for what?" I asked. Then around the corner came Max, skipping with his arms and hands doing a quaint little dance that I had never seen him do before. "Look mom, I am a girl!!" I looked at the manager and smiled, then I looked at Max who had struck a pose that he thought was how a girl would stand. I reassured the manager that I understood and that it would be fine (I hoped). Max and I got in the car to go home. "Mom, I was a girl at daycare today." "You were?" "I played with trucks though and that is a boy thing." We talked about what girls do and what boys do and how different they are. "Girls cry all the time and boys are tough" Max told me. I mentioned that girls can be tough like when they are police and firefighters and he gave me that much. When we got home and I wanted to change him out of his pretty outfit, Max stopped me and said that he didn't want to change, he liked his girl clothes. I was OK with this so he ate dinner and played in his "girl clothes". When it was time for bed, Max asked me to get the camera and take his picture, alright I said and now, I have a frozen moment in time when my son was a girl for a day and really seemed to enjoy it. I sometimes wonder if he will see girls differently because of his time in the flowery jumper? UPDATE: As of October 2009, at the age of 5 years, Max has been declaring that girls are yucky, stupid, lame, and boring and that he doesn't want to get married anymore. I suppose that the day of drag had absolutely no effect on the impending discovery that girls are the ultimate carriers of the cootie virus and boys are, therefore, superior to them in every way.