Gray Morning

Yesterday morning I was in the shower and my son came in to tell me that he decided to wear grey socks today. GRAY SOCKS PEOPLE! GRAY FREAKING SOCKS! At first I thought I had misunderstood. How can this be? You don't wear gray socks. That's against everything you stand for. You stand for blue socks! Who are you? Where's my real son? He went on to say, all of my blue socks are dirty so I'll just wear the gray ones. His nonchalance was startling.

You won't believe me (you probably will) when I tell you that those gray socks have been rolled up for a YEAR in his socks box. I don't remember exactly when it happened but at some point he made it clear to me that under no circumstances would he ever wear anything but blue socks. And not just any blue socks. They had to be the kind from Old Navy with the letters and size on the bottom. I fought it for a while because at the time we only had two pair of those. And I thought I am not going to indulge this completely irrational behavior. But after the fifth morning in a row when I wanted to kill him I thought, this is not an important battle. I went to Old Navy and bought six more pairs. And in future weeks and months when he'd run out of blue socks, I'd just dig a pair of stinky ones out of the hamper because I don't give a rat's ass. They can smell like moldy cheese, in fact sometimes they do, but if he wants them, so be it. I've become very zen about the whole socks thing.

Which is why I was completely shocked, ALARMED, if you will, about his decision to go with the gray ones—gray ones that are identical to the blue ones, aside from the color. He's just growing up I guess. But just to be sure he wasn't growing up too quickly I asked him this morning when he came into our bed if he was too old for morning snuggles. He replied no, as if to say, mommy you have clearly lost your mind. As though I had suggested to his younger self that he wear gray socks.