Before Gabriella was born I decided that she would dress in a range of clothing colors and not be forced to wear the standard pink.

I vowed, "No barbies!"
I vowed, "No princesses!"
I vowed my little girl would not fall into any environmentally influenced gender stereotype.

Then it happened.

Me: "What kind of ice cream do you want, honey?"
Gabriella: "Pink!"
Me: What shoes do you want sweetie?
Gabriella: "The pink ones!"
Me: "Let's go play, Pumpkin."
Gabriella: "I want to play with my pink baby!"
Me: "Okay, I found your baby, here it is."
Gabriella: "I DON'T WANT the BLUE baby, I want the PINK BABY!"

Last year my Mom indulged Gabriella in a back pack that they found at the drugstore. It was bright pink with the Disney Princesses on the back. My heart sank when I saw it. Things were getting worse.

Here she is with the backpack at the Erie County Fair...

About a month or two ago, I took Gabriella to the store to buy some underwear. She loved being able to select the kinds that she liked. I finally said, "Gabby, you can pick one of these, which would you like."

"Ummm..." She thought for a few moments silently, then replied, "I want this one because it matches my backpack." Of course, I should have known we'd be going home with a brand new package of Disney Princess underwear.

It's been raining lately and Gabriella has been requesting her own little umbrella. On Monday I decided we'd return her DVDs to the library and, rather than checking out more of the crack they call DVDs, we'd go to the store to buy her an umbrella. I should have known the selection would be between Spiderman (which she wouldn't even look at,) the Little Mermaid (my personal favorite of the bunch) and the Disney Princesses, complete with ruffles around the edge. You can imagine which one she picked - insisted upon - despite my attempts at convincing her the blue Little Mermaid umbrella might be a nice break from the pink and ruffles.

Nope.

She walked out of that store in her cute blue raincoat, tomboy little pants, hot pink shoes, and now, her new, bright pink and ruffled Princess umbrella.

The other day I was sharing this story with a friend, who empathized and then responded, "Hey, I found my old Barbie Dream House in my parent's attic! Would you like it for Gabriella?"

The Barbie Dream House? Memories of my own Barbie Dream House came flooding to my head - rearranging the furniture, having Barbie and Ken make out, cooking dinner in the little tiny kitchen.

Without hesitation I replied, "SURE! She'd love it!"

Series of Unfortunate Events

9/13/09

I would love to say that 'Gabriella was in rare form.' I really would. Let me begin:

Today she has been fixated on her play ironing board. She has been dragging it all over the house, using it for everything and anything.

She has also been fixated (as usual) on Daddy's box of Tic-Tacs. Taking them out of the little container and putting them back in. Putting them in compartments of the ironing board and taking them out. It's keeping her entertained, so I think nothing of it. In true G form, she looks up at me and grimaces, saying with a strained voice, "I need to poop!"

"Okay, go to the potty honey."

She turns and, dragging her ironing board behind her, is off to the bathroom. When she goes potty, she really likes to have "some space" and prefers that no one is in the bathroom with her. So, I ask about 5 minutes later how she is doing.

Strained voice again, "I'm still poopin!"

5 minutes later, "You okay, pumpkin!"

"Yeah, I'm all done! Just looking for my Tic Tac!"

I head into the bathroom to see the previously mentioned characters, operating together in a way I never imagined:

The ironing board is in the middle of the bathroom.

The potty bowl is on top of the ironing board.

There is *a lot* of poop in the potty bowl.

Gabby's hands are in the bowl trying to find a single Tic-Tac. (The rest were on the floor.)

Poop on her hands, poop on her bottom (pants pulled up), Tic Tacs everywhere..

Updates

It's been a while so I'll post a few quick updates:

1.) Gabriella has become infatuated with baby shows on television (the ones on TLC about real couples having babies.) Today she told me that she was going to the hospital to have a baby. I asked her, "Are you going to push?" She replied, "No, I'm going to have a c-section."
?
Maybe she's watching a little TOO much of those baby shows!

2.) A few weeks ago she decided she wanted to wear underwear. I told her that she could, after she goes poop in the potty. A few minutes later, she went poop in the potty and now she's in underwear during the day. I guess this is just how it happens, I'm just amazed - she still wears a diaper at night but she's essentially potty trained during the day. The only pitfall is that she really likes to try and wipe her bottom by herself. This has created a couple of messy situations... but it's still better than diapers!

Yesterday she bragged to me that she cleaned out her little potty by herself after she pooped. "I scooped up water from the toilet," she exclaimed excitedly, "and then I dumped it in the shower!"

"You did what??"

Even more excitedly, "I scooped up water in the toilet and dumped it in the shower!! All by myself!"

"That's great Gabriella..." (a little less enthusiastically.)

3.) The other day she told Stew that she wanted to visit Grandpa at the hospital, "when he's done dying."

4.) Cute words that she still says incorrectly and we love (we still won't correct her, in fact we'll say it wrong too trying to prolong her mispronunciation.)
- restrunk (restaurant)
- chopstick (chapstick)
- bilical cord ('conveyor belt' at the grocery store)
- bilical cord (umbilical cord)