I’ve been a bit surprised by how many people–come to think of it, mostly women–feel the need to emphatically comment on how masculine-looking Peanut is. “There’s no mistaking it with him,” they typically say. Which is funny, since about the same amount of people have asked me whether he is a boy or a girl, and not just when he’s dressed in neutral-coloured clothes.

As a newborn, he got mistaken for a girl all the time. People would apologize, mildly mortified by their error, and I would try to reassure them how very unoffended I was. A hospital nurse chalked it up to his good looks, saying it was because he was as pretty as a girl. As if boys can’t be pretty!