Yes, there he is: Collin, in his "Dancing Suit," which he will wear for Unca Paul and Unca (Auntie) Nette's wedding this July. I was worried when the suit arrived in the mail that he would hate it, because it is so stiff and heavy and not at all what he's used to wearing. But Ryan took him back to his room (some sort of "first suit" ritual between father and son, I presume) and a few minutes later a very small, blond person emerged, beaming from ear to ear and reminding me of Robert Duvall as Consigliere in The Godfather movies.
Boy, is he excited.
Of course, this picture (and the next one that I hope to post of Collin) offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on the gender role messages he's getting now that he's going to school. He doesn't want to wear a flower in his button-hole at the wedding because "boys don't wear flowers" and he no longer wants to do ballet (even though he LOVES the moves of balletic dancing) because "boys can only do rock and roll dancing."
We've pulled out some books with pictures of Nureyev and Nijinsky in them, and discussed how much Daddy likes flowers, but he's not buying it. Of course, perhaps I share some blame in all this too. I've been SO resistant to letting them get attached to name brands (No SpongeBob in my house!!) and gender stereotypes, but as anyone who knows me well knows, I am obsessed with Batman (the dark, brooding Batman of Frank Miller strips and *Arkham Asylum*, not Adam West battling Cesar Romero.) So when Collin started asking about Batman and what his powers were (I also love that Batman has no superpowers, just works out and uses his wits and gadgets), who the villians were, etc., I responded VERY positively.
Needless to say, the boy now owns a Batman hat, 2 identical Batman shirts, Batman flip-flops, a Batman backpack . . . and it's all, every bit of it, my fault.
Sigh. At least in this suit he's more Bruce Wayne than anything else.
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