Gender-Confused?

I always seem to meet the strangest people when I am out and about at various stores.  Today was no exception.  Grace and I were at Albertsons grocery store picking up a couple of things and I stopped to look at a clearance rack full of children’s books. 

Another customer that I would judge to be in her 40’s walked up to Grace, bent down, and said, “Oh, what a precious little boy!  Is he your only son?”

*It should be noted that Grace was wearing a pink shirt, khaki shorts with pink flowers, pink sandals, and a long ponytail with a BIG bow in her hair.

Noticing Grace’s confusion, I said, “Thank you.  Yes, she is my only daughter.  She’s a girl.”

The woman looked again carefully at Grace, shrugged her shoulders, and said “Huh!…”  [Tone of voice indicated that she didn’t believe me].

We continued to look around at the different books and the woman stayed uncomfortably close by.  Then she pulled a Spiderman book off the shelf and gave it to me.  “Do you think she would like this?”

“Um, no.  She’s not really into Spiderman.”

I went back to perusing while the woman took another book off the shelf and tried to hand it to me.  “Does she like fire trucks?”

“Um, I think I’m just going to buy what I have here.”  [I was holding a book about animals].

Woman says, “Huh!…”

At this point I decided just to go check out, so we headed to get in line.  As we were walking away, Grace started laughing and said, “Mama, that lady thought I was a BOY!  That’s so silly!  Boys don’t have ponytails!”

I love the logic of a 4-year-old.