As you know, last weekend I struggled to help the Diva with her second grade math. That was really silly. I now understand that second grade math is an absolute joke compared to helping your son prepare for Wacky Wednesday at his preschool.
The Pterodactyl initially was very excited about Wacky Wednesday. “I’m going to wear two shirts!” he declared. “And mix-match shoes! And a mohawk!”
The excitement did not fool me. “This can only end badly,” I told Hot Firefighter Husband.
Normal children should be thrilled at the idea of wearing crazy clothes for a day. The Pterodactyl is not particularly normal. He is in fact a uniquely peculiar child.
I ordinarily don’t approve of the term “anal-retentive” because I find its implied image disturbing. But it’s sort of a literal description of a boy who insists, when he’s taking care of business, that I stand in the bathroom facing away from him, and, upon his uttering of the words, “Ding, ding!” come forth to assist in the clean-up.
So the night before Wacky Wednesday, to prevent a morning breakdown, I convened a meeting in the Pterodactyl’s room to decide what he would wear. He picked out his two shirts. “I know!” I said. “Why don’t you wear a long-sleeved shirt with a short-sleeved shirt on top!”
Disdain. “No,” he said.
“Or shorts on top of your long pants! That’s wacky!”
Utter disdain. “No,” he said.
The final outfit included two short-sleeved shirts, sweats, one white sock and one black sock, one dinosaur Croc and one black Croc. Craaaaaazzzzzy!
I woke him up the next morning. “It’s Wacky Wednesday!” I said. “Let’s get dressed!”
A few minutes later I heard his uniquely deafening thin-toned nasally whine. “It’s not wacky! Nothing’s wacky!” He stripped off all his clothes and flung himself on the bed in his camouflage underwear. I suggested several wacky ideas, including wearing a tuxedo, a skirt, his hot dog shirt, and a Hawaiian shirt over his hot dog shirt. No.
Husband suggested he wear one of Husband’s shirts. There was a pause as he considered the idea, and we jumped on it like syrup on bacon. Husband retrieved a very cool firefighter t-shirt with a ladder on the back. The Pterodactyl held it against his body. “I want to hang it on the wall of my room,” he said. Then he marched into Husband’s closet to forage, which was difficult because the light in the closet has been burned out for, like, 100 years. He finally picked out a maroon silk shirt with gold designs from our trip to Vietnam to bring home the Diva. Irreplaceable. But this is how much we love/fear the Pterodactyl: we said, “That’s perfect!”
He put it on. Then he took it off and said, “I want to hang it on the wall of my room.”
I was very close to bringing him to school naked, which would have been perfect for Wacky Wednesday but very upsetting, at least for him, when I spotted the Mardi Gras t-shirt we had purchased for $3.99 from the Rite-Aid in New Orleans.
Me: “I know! You can wear your Mardi Gras t-shirt and some crazy beads!”
Emotionally Exhausted Him: “Okay, fine!”
So he wore a Mardi Gras t-shirt, some enormous purple beads with yellow rubber ducks attached, mix-matched shoes and socks and a totally sick mohawk styled by his sister the Diva. He looked awesomely nutso.
You may be wondering where one gets purple beads with yellow rubber ducks attached, and if you are, it is clear you have never been to Mardi Gras. Purple beads with yellow rubber ducks attached were indeed a prized catch, but after seven parades, my children had caught, in addition to three tons of beads, a Barbie-sized toilet, a roll of toilet paper, a yellow plastic bag, five banana Moon Pies and a rubber-tipped spear. The Diva also caught some sort of rash from stabbing herself in the belly with the spear.
At any rate, we finally loaded into the car for Wacky Wednesday, me speeding down the road so I could deposit the Pterodactyl before his mohawk fell flat and his wackiness level dropped. While waiting in carline, he saw his little friend Kay, who was wearing two ponytails. “Look at Kay,” he said. I looked at Kay, and smiled smugly to myself. “I followed the ru-ules,” I sang under my breath.
“Wow,” said the Pterodactyl, staring at Kay in awe. “That’s really, really wacky!”
