A sad milestone

Today was the Halloween parade at Elliott's school. He has been waiting to be a knight in shining armor for weeks now and was just beside himself to get to wear the costume today. But when we started to leave for school, he said that he didn't want to go. Then he started trying to take off his costume. He didn't believe me that today was parade day. He wailed, "I will be the only one wearing a costume. I don't want to be weird."

And my heart just broke. He has so much personality and I've always felt that a huge part of my job is to make him feel safe to be himself, confident enough to do his own thing. Every child feels that need to conform and that social anxiety at some point, but I really thought we'd have more than 3 1/2 years of freedom.

The good part? Once we got to school and he saw the other kids, he was so proud to be a knight again. But when all the other kids took off their costumes later, he said, "No, thanks. I'll keep mine on." And he wore it until this afternoon.