I know that some people believe that baby boys and girls grow up to be masculine or feminine because of their environment and what society tells them they should be, not necessarily that they are that way innately. I believed that to a large degree until recently. I would say most of Oliver's toys are gender-neutral. He has blue cups, and he has pink cups. He has books about princesses and books about pirates. He has noisemakers and other musical instruments. But he is starting to collect a large supply of things on wheels... cars, trucks, tractors, animals, a telephone, and so on. It's not that we have given him these things, because he's a boy. We've given them to him, because he loves them. I would just as soon give him baby dolls if that was what he loved to play with, but it's not.
As I was going through one of his books with him the other day, I realized just how much he loves them. We were going through his book that shows many different things of one color on each page - when I noticed that he was only pointing to things on wheels! I was amazed! He even takes things that don't actually have wheels, but have 2D images of things on wheels, and pretends that they are driving. He makes the sound for them.
Part of it is his environment, but I don't think he would become so obsessed with cars without some innate part of him already loving them. And I think it comes from Jan. Jan can tell you the make, model, year, engine, positives/negatives of the design, newer makes and models that have come out, how the new design improves on a downfall of the previous design, when a car was discontinued or when it first came out, and everything in between just by looking at a car. It really is quite amazing, and I think Oliver has inherited that love of cars (and tractors, trucks, and trains) from him. I guess we will have at least two car gurus in this family.
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