Quirky

Yesterday, we went on a family outing to the National Air and Space Museum in DC. The museum was packed with kids all excited to see the suspended airplanes and rocket ships. I venture to say that there was only one little boy in the entire museum who was wearing tsitsit over his daddy's fleece (or floor-length dress, as the case may be) while carrying a siddur with socks on his hands.

My kid really does his own thing, and I love it.

Granted, it wasn't easy climbing up the stairs of the 1950s airplane while trying not to trip on the vest or the tsitsit, and trying to hold tightly on to the siddur with the sock mittens. But he did it. And I think it was worth the extra effort.

I am grateful for Purim. Each time he asks to wear something which seems to go too far, (for example, I draw the line about wearing daddy's vest to school), I tell him, "You can wear that on Purim! Purim's coming very soon!"

There will be no Thomas or Spiderman or even Haman costumes for this kid. Pop culture means nothing to him at this point. He is too excited to wear Daddy's shirt and tie and Mommy's long brown velvet dress.

I remember when he was potty trained and I told him he could pick out underwear. He insisted on having "brown underwear." OK. It would have been much easier if he had asked for something that is actually in the stores, such as Elmo or Superman underwear.

But brown?

Fortunately, I remembered a scene from one of my favorite childhood reads, All of a Kind Family. Henny, the mischievous middle child borrows, without asking, her older sister's beautiful white dress to go to a party, where she accidentally stains the dress with tea.

Always resourceful, Henny resolves the problem by dying the entire dress in tea - hoping that her sister won't notice the color change.

So that evening, I boiled a big pot of tea and died his white underwear a lovely shade of light brown. Needless to say, it was a big hit.

One of the aspects of his quirkiness which I love most is that fact that he is blissfully unaware of it. He just does what he likes.

It is a quality I admire and would like to emulate.