so there was this day a while ago already, when my sister's nearly 3yo son was visiting (my parents).

my daughter, who is almost 10, had managed to slice up bread on her own, so i ask the little boy
"hasn't R gotten big and clever?"
to which he replied "no, R's an itty-bitty man."
that should be obvious, he thinks. aren't all tiny people itty-bitty men? that's what my sister calls him, so it has to be true.

my mother thought this was a mistake worthy of correcting, and immediately started explaining how he was an itty-bitty man because he is a boy, and my daughter is an itty-bitty woman because she is a girl. trying really hard to make him understand the difference.

i on the other hand, found my nephew's expression totally adorable, and also know that my daughter considers herself half boy, so i ask her while my mother is trying to explain. "R, are you an itty-bitty woman or and itty-bitty man?"

well, i think you all already understand what her answer was.

as nobody seems to feel any need to reply to the topic, possibly because of the lack of apparent cuteness (?), i'll just continue my monologue with another story of my dearest daughter.

my little girl is taking dance classes. modern dance, kinda jazz/ballet, but not really.
so in order to get some inspiration for dance movements, as they were told to make up some of their own to present to the class, we watched some break dance videos on youtube. in one of the videos, there was a person with the same hairdo as mine was a few months ago. same as in my pic, but too short to braid, so it was just frizz and curls standing up rather than lying down. apparently a popular hairdo among breakers...
my daughter looks at me, and the video, and me, and the video, and asks, "mom, is that...?"
"no," i answer. "it's not me. i can't dance like that."
"ah, ok..." she laughed half embarrassed, half doubtful and confused. "that guy looks just like you."

she still doesn't realize that she actually views her mom as more of a guy. she even calls me "the coolest there is."
not the coolest mom, it seems i can even compete with the dads.

Awww, that's soo cute!   and it's great that you're teaching your little one about gender, even if you're just being subtle about it

My own nieces have done the cutest things themselves over the years.  For the sake of anonymity, we'll call one K and one G.  They're twin sisters (not identical), and only about 12 years younger than me.

One time when they were about 5, mum was giving them a bath.  My partner at the time was staying over too.  We just came out of my room when they'd finished bathing, and K came out of the bathroom, stark naked, and exclaimed "Ok!  Let's ROCK!", punching her fist in the air.  My partner and I nearly *died* laughing!

K and G have always been poles apart in personality.  G's very feminine in every possible sense of the word.  K on the other hand is very butch and much more like a boy.  I've actually been wondering lately if K may actually be a trans* boy, because K has always had issues.  I'm looking for an opportunity to try and talk to them about it in a subtle way and let them know it's ok, but as I'm not out myself yet, it's kinda hard lol.

But yeh, kids are soo damn cute!  Really hope to have my own some day   I hope they're as epic as my nieces have been lol! <3

Aww! It's awesome how perceptive kids are at that age. My nephew has some friends who are girls who refuse to use anything blue because "blue is for boys". Who teaches them this stuff!!! Even in my ballerina phase I'm pretty sure my favorite color was blue and I never cared.