Gender-bending

MonkeyBoy, who is 3, told me a long and involved story this evening about his father (or fahver, as he says it), Fred. Which is strange because I don't know anyone called Fred. Turns out Fred is his 'other fahver' who lives in 'a apartment' when he's not in the hospital because he's sick.

Anyhow, as today's story went, when Fred was a baby MonkeyBoy was his mother (or muvver) and had to take care of him (because he was sick - I'm not sure whether it's a chronic illness or just general poor health, but almost every story involving Fred has him sick or just recovering from being sick). To make Fred feel better, MonkeyBoy his muvver told him a story, which went like this:

Once upon a time there was a king. He was a very old king and they called him the Mermaid King. He was very sad because no one would be his buddy and come to play with him. One day some people came and he said "Hey, will you be my buddy?" and they said "Sure!" And everyone played together and they were all very happy. The end.


Apparently MonkeyBoy was reminded of the time when Fred was a baby by the fact that he, MonkeyBoy, now has a baby in his tummy - not a boy baby or a girl baby yet, it's just a baby. I can hardly wait, although the way things are going, I don't know if I'll be its grandmother, its grandfather, or possibly its second cousin twice removed.

I'm not sure if going into the facts of life at this point will help matters or not. I suspect not - I have yet to meet a 3-year-old who'd let the facts get in the way of a good story.

It does make for some interesting conversations, though.