Mama CrankyPants and another quarter for the therapy jar

Little One has just enough hair now that, with some imagination, one can see the makings of a ponytail....well to be honest, it's more like the rat-tail thing that kind of caught on in the mid- to late-80's.  So why is this important?  Because I'm tired of this conversation:

Stranger:  "What a handsome little boy.  What's his name/How old is he?"
Me:  "Her name is .../ She's 18 months."
Stranger:  Was he named after someone in your family?  That's an unusual name."

Mind you, most of Little One's clothes are pink, floral, frilly, girly, cute, feminine...I know it shouldn't bother me, and I honestly don't know why it does, but please, can we just keep comments on stranger's children more ambiguous so that neurotic Mamas like myself can stop worrying about the whole gender thing at 18 months? 

And, I know I'm a stickler for this kind of thing, but if you are going to stop me in the middle of the store and ask me about my child, please know that I expect you to listen to the air flow I have effortfully forced through vocalic folds while simultaneously producing alternate voicing and devoicing and moving rapidly those articulators which shape the airstream into specific sounds at specific formants and frequencies to answer your question.  In other words; you asked and I want you to listen to what I've said.  "SHE is 18 months old.  HER name is..."

This recent episode coincides with Miss 4 informing me that a peer recently told her she needed to wear "tighter clothes" if she wanted to be pretty.  I still don't have a rational argument or response to this because I am so thrown off by the fact that four and five year-old girls are having this conversation.  I am secretly pleased that my daughter was more concerned that her friend "didn't know she was wrong.  Pretty clothes have sparkles.  Tight clothes go to your little sister."  So for a few brief moments I am relieved that the world has yet to define my daughter completely by her external self. 

And yet I feel like I am part of the problem.  On some level when a stranger comments on my "little boy", (and I react from a place that I am ashamed to admit is more about that stranger thinking my toddler is "handsome" rather than "pretty"), I know I am perpetuating the practice that looks are of some primary importance.  And I wonder, would I be pondering things the same way if I were raising boys?

This one might deserve an extra quarter for the therapy jar.  One for the kids, one for Me.