Saturday, December 15, 2007

In which I reveal the quote of the week

A certain sadness has overcome me, folks. My three-and-a-half year old sweet little boy has become...image conscious. My best guess is that it stems from something that one of those nasty little nose pickers from daycare said to him, but I don't reckon I'll ever know the exact origin.

Anyway, it started like any other day...me running around like a psycho hose beast, Eric watching PBS Kids Sprout while sitting 6 inches from the TV and Ella screeching her head off from her crib while I dig through a mountain of unfolded laundry to find that damn matching sock...but this past Wednesday will forever live in infamy (or perhaps just famy). I gathered some clothes for Eric to wear, then I chased him around the house trying to dress him, finally wrestling him to the floor in the kitchen. I started pulling his old clothes off while he took a look at the clothes I had in store for him. Then he spotted them. The Scooby Doo underpants. "I CAN'T WEAR SCOOBY DOO UNDERPANTS BECAUSE SCOOBY DOO MAKES ME CUTE!" he informed me, indignantly.

It was one of those moments where, as a human being, you want to laugh, but as a parent, you know you shouldn't. He was so upset. And we were running so late. Anyway, I convinced him that nobody would be able to see Scooby Doo, and he could wear better underpants tomorrow (Power Rangers or Transformers apparently would have been acceptable options).

That night, when I was putting him to bed, we were having a discussion about the state of things. It was a pretty deep, revealing conversation. The long and short of it is that Eric now prefers to be cool, not cute. Personally, I'd settle for either of those, but I think I fall short. Perhaps I need to start wearing Scooby Doo underpants.