Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My

Is there anything cuter in this world than a five week old baby in a pair of footie pajamas with little jungle animals printed on them? I challenge anyone to produce something more capable of inducing a universal round of "awwww."

Baby clothes are my topic for the rant of the week, for several reasons. We've reached a new and unexpected milestone within the last few days: Sadie, who has been putting on the pounds at a rate faster than her mother locked overnight in a Krispy Kreme store, has already grown too big for many of her newborn clothes. A few days ago, I attempted to snap a onesie over her diaper, and you could see the material strain at both ends.

This means it's time to graduate to the 3 month onesies, and this presents a problem: while Sadie owns a number of very cute little summery shirts and pants in the 3-month size, she has virtually no onesies, and this baby LIVES in onesies. They are the ultimate in lazy dresswear.

So I ventured out to the mall yesterday to buy her some onesies in her new-and-improved Big Girl size. Walking into Gymboree, you can tell immediately which is the boy's side and which is the girl's. One guess as to which side was overwhelmingly pink. No shocker there, right? But as I shopped, my disgust grew.

Everyone always says it's easier and more fun to shop for girls than for boys. Yet as I rifled through endless stacks of pink sweaters and pink-and-white striped socks and pink hats with bunny ears on them, I couldn't help but note that the boys' clothing was decorated in shades of blue, brown, green, yellow, red. They had pictures of puppies and bears, printed on bright patterns.

The only package of onesies I could find in Sadie's size had a fairy-tale princess theme. Each onesie had a different image evoking (or intended to evoke) a pretty, pretty princess. One had a crown. Another, a scepter. A third, a high-heeled shoe.

Yes, that's right. The boy onesies had pictures of puppies of them. The girl onesies have pictures of sparkly pumps.

By the time I got to my second stop, the department store, I didn't waste too much time in the girls' section. I was looking for some clothes for an upcoming winter trip to the Pacific Northwest, and I knew what I wanted: some absurdly cute, fleecy clothes to keep her warm.

As I'm wandering around the boys' section, I stumble upon the cutest freaking outfit ever: a fleecy pair of powder-blue pajamas with bear's ears on the hood. Apparently in the world of children's wear, this is called a pram. I guess I've been reading too much Dickens, because I thought "pram" was Brit-speak for "stroller," but here it means "item of puffy clothing designed to elicit shrieks of joy from grandmothers all over the world."

The minute I pick it up, I'm accosted by a woman who is the type of woman you can find at every department store in the world. If you've ever bought a bra at Macy's, you know exactly who I'm talking about: she's older, she has a strong Eastern European accent, and she would like to inform you exactly what you need to buy, so you can save yourself the trouble of coming up with an opinion of your own.

When I told the woman what I was looking for, she asked me if the clothes were for a boy or a girl. Girl, I answered.

"This is the boy's section," she informed me. I replied that yes, I knew it was, but it didn't really matter to me -- I was just looking for winter baby clothes. You wouldn't believe the look she gave me in response, but the intention of it was clear: yes, it DID matter. It mattered a great deal.

She eyed the blue pram I was holding. "We have that for girls. The girls clothes are over here," she said, marching over to the other side of the store. And hey, guess what? Everything was pink, pink, pink. Pink sweaters with red and pink matching pants, pink velour tracksuits, pink puffy coats and pink fleecy vests.

"This is good for winter!" the woman said enthusiastically, plucking a tiny white woolen sweater off the rack and placing it into my arms. The price on the tag was $44.99. She led me to the cash register, where I gave her the blue outfit and told her the white sweater was too expensive and I didn't need it.

"It's on sale. Only $29.99," she told me, and proceeded to ring up the sweater. "I don't need it," I repeated, and physically removed the sweater from the pile. She kind of shrugged her shoulders like, Okay, apparently it's not enough that your imposing your gender confusion upon your daughter -- you want her to freeze, too.

Do we dress our girls in pink because pink is what they like? Or do our girls like pink because, from the youngest possible age, we've swaddled them in nothing else? Why are mothers taught to believe that it matters whether we dress our month-old child in blue, pink, yellow or black? Why the disapproval if I want to put her in clothes with lions on them, or baseballs, or a rocket ship? Would it be more appropriate if that rocket ship was pink?