Laying the foundation...with foundation garments?

Funny enough, my initial awakening to Dandelion's transition was all about underwear...yep, underwear.

Around the age of 4, it was more and more often we caught Dandelion going "kamikaze".

"Where are your undies?"
"I don't have any."
"You have a drawer full!"
"They're too pretty!"

For goodness sakes! It's underwear, no one sees it - who cares! Well, obviously, someone did...someone cared a lot.

Regardless of my narrow opinion, the next time we were at the department store I took Dandelion to the girls' underwear section and said, "Choose!". Dandelion wandered the rack, back and forth, then something caught her eye on the next rack...the boys' rack...Spiderman underwear. Dandelion drifted over there, oohed and ahhed for a few moments and decidedly told me that she wanted the Spiderman underwear.

Of course she did - and, she wanted them to be just like Daddy's...boxer briefs. That's what we took home, along with a package of the boxer briefs with Cars on them, too. She was so proud to show Daddy that she had underwear just like his - but more fun.

Daddy admitted that the new underwear was really cool, but still gave me a quizzical look over Dandelion's shoulder.

Why? Why not? At this point, I'm still thinking it is still a phase, and what harm will it do to buy her new underwear - who decides what is boy or girl undies at that age?

But, from that day on I noticed a difference in Dandelion. A swagger? a slight change in attitude and mannerisms...enough for me to notice, and enough for me to begin thinking that this may not be a "phase".

It is still a good year off before I stop trying to dress Dandelion to my own tastes. It is a quite a while before I stop trying to get Dandelion to compromise with me by wearing a feminine shirt, but in BLUE (I look back now and simultaneously am disappointed and amused at myself!).

But, there is no denial that the underwear made a huge difference to Dandelion. No one but those of us at home ever saw it, but Dandelion knew that the foundation had been layed and had hope for us to know it, too.