Not his tribe

When September rolled around my son's friends all left the daycare. Most of his friends were a year older than he is; the one who wasn't left for another preschool. I was sad about it, but I knew a whole new crop of kids was coming in, and somewhere there, I thought for sure, he'd find new friends.

I started getting worried when they told me that out of 24 kids, there were six boys. There's a single boy his age. One of the boys doesn't speak any English. Another is not yet three. Another he knows from the year before, and they don't like each other that much, because that kid's older brother was also there, and was a mean kid who said mean things to my kid. (He was the one who, when they had "toy from home day" and my kid brought his Iron Man Mask that he was so proud of, took it from him, got the boys together to play a super hero game, and then told my kid he couldn't play because he had no costume. It's a good thing my kid said no, give me back my mask, please (and the other kid complied), because momma bear was there with fire in her eye and was about to march over, grab the damn mask, and smack that kid upside the head for being so freaking mean.)

But I digress.

The Boy is getting along pretty well despite all this. He has friends, the girls adore him, he tells me all the time he has fun. I keep him home when he asks, but he still prefers the daycare to shopping or groceries or errands. I arrange playdates with last year's friends.

But this morning, Halloween party day, he arrived in his now full Iron Man costume to the biggest bevy of Disney princesses I've ever seen. No other boy was in a costume; the one boy who had brought a costume came as a parrot.

I wrote yesterday that I didn't understand my son's fascination for superheroes, but dammit if this is his interest and his passion right now I do want him to have friends to share it with, and enjoy it. Oh, sure, the princesses surrounded him oooh-ing and aaah-ing and asking to try on the mask, and they all went happily off together, in costume, my son cajoling the other boy to put on his parrot costume. I know it doesn't matter that much to him -- they're all in costume and it's fun and it doesn't matter if the other boy is spiderman or a tropical bird.

But OH I wish it were different for him. I can't wait until he's done there.