A legacy of Nana: she kept so many of my old toys, and we’ve recycled them, giving them to our own kids. L was never interested in most of them; the Boy, though is a different story.

What does that say about gender differences? Our son is interested in his father’s old toys; our daughter isn’t. Is that nature? Nurture? Both? We’ve never told our kids “this is a boy’s toy” or “this is a girl’s toy,” but they’ve gravitated that way. Perhaps it’s so saturated in our culture that it’s impossible to escape.

The Boy’s latest interest: my old Girder and Panel building set. I was about his age when I got it, and I loved it immediately. The Boy had a similar reaction.

It took him a while to get the hang of snapping the girders together, and the windows were as frustrating for him as they were and still are for me, but his verdict was unequivocal. “I love it.”