I’ll second that! (Girl identicals, just turned seven.)

The cross over point, where having two is easier than having one (we have an elder daughter too), is three and a half.

Regarding clothes, I’ve run into difficulties trying to buy different, non-pink clothes for my twins. It’s a bit easier now that they’re older, because we can go to a store and pick out several pairs of jeans or tops or whatever, and the girls get to choose which one they would like. If they end up choosing exactly the same as each other, well, that’s their choice.

But the reason choosing several items first, so that they make their choice of one thing from that group, is so that I can edit out the truly awful garments (fake fur, sequins, bare midriffs, sexualised stuff). It is hard to find clothes for them that aren’t glittery girl-girl stuff, or completely sexualised.

He’s very much living the life of the mind even as a 2nd grader. He is an encyclopedic sponge, and actually lectures other kids about whatever has caught his attention on a given day. His 1st grade teacher said their classmates ate it up, to the extend that she had to remind them that SHE was the teacher. Katie is wildly creative and loves science, and their first grade teacher told us she was a very good actress. I found an awesome Jane Goodall book for kids called “My Life with the Chimpanzees” that both of them are fascinated by me too!). I’m thinking of reading them an adult level book by her as well. Seven year old twins are a BLAST! It gets easier every year, I promise. :)

Meanwhile, a lot of manufacturers seem to have perfected the process of making baby clothes wear out by the time they’re outgrown, which sometimes means the stuff falls apart on first wearing. If you have a good circle of like-minded people to pass stuff around, the spendy stuff will pay for itself — our toddler has some pj’s and shirts that could go to another three or four kids after a year of wearing.

(Manufacturers also seem to do interesting things with sizing depending on target market, which sometimes makes me wonder about infant nutrition levels in the US.)

I am saving a lot of DS’s clothes for the sister. They are mostly gender neutral, with colors fairly indistinguishable from my wardrobe or DH’s. Robots, dinosaurs, spaceships, trucks, and lizards figure prominently, along with The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Pooh. I know we will get dresses and pink stuff from relatives and friends, and a few pieces is fine, but I have the feeling we’ll be shopping quite a bit in the boy’s section unless she’s a lot bigger Fairy Princess fan than I ever was.

Now we are bit more solvent than when DS was born, so there will probably be impulse purchases of baby-geek-wear as well.

Now, obviously, those are problems of themselves - no child consciously decides that they hate butterflies and like trucks - they’re all products of their environment. But still, I think that this is simply a peripheral extension of the core of “sexing” the kids, which happens when they’re older.

That being said, when dressing my boy I was generally disappointed, personally. The girl’s outfits had a coherent sense of style - they would have nice design elements that were meant to flow over the whole piece, and were well put together. The boys, by contrast, generally followed a theme of “pick a grubby colour and vomit random elements of boy culture across it”.

A girl will have a bouquet of flowers blooming from her waist across her chest. A boy will have a soccer ball, an iguana, and train randomly plastered onto his torso. I get the distinct impression that the people responsible for designing the boy’s clothing are phoning it in simply because it isn’t as much fun to work with continuous random combinations of trucks and sporting gear.

And speaking of bright colours, I’m happy that brown is the color for babies this decade. I remember the days when everything a loud mess of primary colours and pastels. Just because my boy likes Fisher Price toys doesn’t mean he should look like one.

Either way, the real fun involves plain white onesies, an inkjet printer, an iron, and some transfer paper.

@thene

“”"My feeling is that when it comes to appearances, gender policing is primarily a same-gender activity rather than an opposite-gender one.”"”

Agreed, personally. Already had the conversation with the wife she was due. I told her that, if we had a girl, I was raising a nerdy tom-boy who could code and play sports and whatnot. She said that’s fine, as long as she got to dress the girl up in pretty dresses.

I’ve been lucky with kid clothes: my daughter gets most of her clothes as hand-me-downs from her four girl cousins, all of whom dress decently, and my son doesn’t care what he wears, so I dress him in no-brand sweats from Sears most of the time as they’re practical and easy to wrestle on and off him.

When I am King, I will rule that sneakers are always appropriate attire, with the exception of weddings and funerals.

You don’t have to thank me. I’m a giver.

My own theory is that manufacturers simply want to increase the number of parents who “have” to buy two sets of clothes if they have a girl and a boy, because the other clothes are unsuitable.

I am more likely to whisper “glad I don’t have a girl” under my breath when shopping for clothes… why on earth are midriff-wearing styles being sold to grade schoolers?

Don’t even get started on the shoes. Shoes and swimwear are the two most likely to reduce me to the Spluttering Feminist Anger setting.

Yeah, this kid steals the show from his brother all the time. He’s the baby of a thousand faces, and that crooked grin is one of them.