How did I become that parent?

I'm so disappointed with myself.

Somehow--and I'm really not sure how it happened--the other day I encouraged Toddler in Chief to be interested in a boy thing and discouraged him from a girl thing. I'm having huge regrets about this. I never wanted to be that kind of parent.

When we were out shopping for a bike for Christmas, he really liked the purple girls bike. He picked it out. He rode around on it. And he wanted to bring that one home with us. We let him ride around on it, but then we also had him ride the red boys bike. And we ended up buying the boys bike. What difference does it make? Why did I do that? I don't care if he wears pink and purple and likes girl things. I have always joked that "TIC is in touch with his feminine side."

The scariest part is that I don't think I did it on purpose. I hope that my subconscious doesn't do that again. I feel so crappy about it that I want to return the red bike and get the purple one. He doesn't seem to mind the red bike. And Father in Chief has a red bike, so he likes that his looks like daddy's. But ugh. I don't want to force him into boy things or boy colors or boy stereotypes. I'm so frustrated with myself.

He's only two and I'm steering him in gender-specific directions. How did this happen?