Since I threw Abigail under the bus a few days ago it seems only fair that I throw Elliott too. Now with Elliott there is the common quirkiness of boyish pleasure in bodily noises (which I fully encourage and I can only hope, inspire) and the extreme desire for violence (throwing, punching, screaming). This seems to fit a cycle, as I talked about in a previous post. Typical four year old boy stuff. Elliott, I\’m not ashamed to admit, is a cross-dresser. It’s true. In fact, I think he\’s addicted to clothes.
Most kids like to dress up and play pretend. We have bundles of after-Halloween costumes – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (yes, they’re still around), Power Ranger, Ninja, Purple dinosaur, and dresses and dresses and dresses. Elliott likes to wear them all every day (not at once mind you). Throw on top of the costumes his everyday clothing that he changes at least 5 times a day. I’ll come out from my office to get some coffee and find Elliott dressed to the 9s in a pretty yellow princess dress and Sonya’s old wedding pumps. When I’m done making my coffee he’ll be dressed in his black and yellow ninja outfit and come up to me and punch me in the nuts.
The dressing up fetish has gotten to the point where we’ve had to put limits on his “dress up” times — he’s not happy about that, but he’ll survive. For instance, it’s only 8:50am and Elliott has already worn 3 “outfits” (he got up at 7:30) — which means he’s reached his quota for the day.
Its funny, to be sure, but over the course of an entire day and several crying tantrums, its exhausting, frustrating and annoying.
Its really not bad in the grand scheme of things – with all the other things in our lives that we balance on a daily basis, I just hope he grows up to have good taste.