Hat Day

On Monday, Eddie's school had "Hat Day". There's one thing I can say about my son and it's that he's kinda fearless and likes to be the center of attention. I was never that way - I was the shy, bashful type that found it hard to get up in front of the classroom to teach. I'm over that, but it's taken years. I've also dressed conservatively, not wanting to call attention to myself. Trying to change that, too. So, with my son, I've been trying to encourage him to have confidence to be bold and make statements or have fun with his appearance so that he doesn't have my hang-ups. For that reason, I asked him if he wanted to wear this pseudo-Viking hat I bought for him in Denmark almost three years ago. It has horns and there were bells on the horns. He was all for it. Before we left the house, I asked him if he liked the hat. His reply was, "Yeah, it's cool."

I forgot to take a picture of him in it, so I had him put it on again last night. Then, I noticed that the bells on the end were missing and I asked him about it. His story is as follows:

"Those three first-grade girls started chasing me [at recess] because they thought the hat was cool! They even pushed me down once, but it only hurt a little bit. They got the hat and the bells fell off. They gave me the bells, but I lost them. It's okay, though."

My first thought, with one of those smiles to myself was, "and so it begins" - meaning, of course, boy and girl interactions.

I was able to ask the first grade teacher today who the girls were and she pointed them out to me at recess. The girls and Eddie were sorta chasing each other again. Does this mean I'm in for many more years of this? LOL