I freakin' LOVE October. It's always been my favorite time of the year, and just the idea of October makes me happy. Most of the cool things in my life happen during this month. My wedding (October 7...7 years!), my husband's birthday (October 15), my son's birthday (October 24...4 years old!), the epicness that is Halloween, and basically everything else that is righteous and awesome in this world. I have been described as 'Goth' most of my life, because I do tend to be a little dark at times. Not a BAD kind of dark. I'm not going to wear blood in a locket around my neck or anything. (Thanks a lot, Angelina) But I just kind of prefer the ooky and spooky things of this world. That's why October is my best friend, and I miss it dearly when it's over.
My son loves October too, but for him it's mainly because this month contains his birthday and he knows he's gonna rack up some cool toys. This is the first year he's been able to really and truly pick out his Halloween costume, and I have to say that his choice says a lot about him.
His first Halloween he was a monkey (NEVER has there been a cuter monkey. NEVER.), his second he was Darth Vader (sue me - I'm a Star Wars nerd), and last year he was Wilson the Chuggington train (I was his handy train conductor). But this year I allowed him to have the final say on what his costume would be. We looked at countless websites and characters and found some really cute costumes - pirates, superheroes, monsters - but he chose to be a tomato. That's right.
A tomato.
There is a children's cartoon called 'The Veggie Tales', and one of the characters is - you guessed it - Bob the Tomato. Or as my son pronounces it, "Bobber Damay-to". So in the long list of super cool costumes that we looked at, my kid was more impressed with the idea of being a tomato than anything else. And I'm ashamed to admit that I even tried to talk him out of it! Then I sucked it up and got the silly tomato costume. And I will be his reliable sidekick, the farmer. He told my husband he needed to dress up as a pile of dirt, but I don't think daddy's going for it.
My kid is original. He hasn't gotten to the point where he has to do what his friends are doing, although I know that time is coming quickly. One of his teachers told me last week that she and another teacher were trying to determine what each kid in the class would grow up to be, based on their personalities. She said that they decided my son would be an "eccentric History professor. You know, the kind who shows up to class in full costume, or starts class with a song." At first I thought - soooo....you're saying my 3 year old is eccentric? Does that mean you think he's strange? And then I thought, You know what? My kid is freakin' AWESOME. And I told his teacher that I was proud of him for dancing to the beat of his own drum.
Conformity will be coming soon enough. It won't be long before his friends will become the authorities on 'all that is cool', and he won't have a single independent thought in his head.
But for now, at least, my strange little eccentric kid is going to be a tomato - and I love him for it.
Don't hide your inner Bobber Damay-to. Embrace your eccentricities, because without them, we'd be a bunch of boring assholes.
Happy October, ya'll.
