Like a Pink Nightmare

I was on daycare pick-up duty today. When I walked in the door, Pam, our fabulous provider, was holding a child covered in a blanket, rocking it from side to side. "It is soooo nap time," she said in a bit of a hush. Two little legs hung down out of the blanket. They were sporting pink pants with strawberries on them, so naturally I assumed it was Oliver's 8-month-old friend, Evelyn.

I peered around into the corner into the living room in search for Mr. O, and was surprised to find a carseat: Evelyn's carseat, specifically, covered in a pink fuzzy blanket with two baby feet sticking out. Pam gently took the blanket off of the bundle she held, and Oliver gave me a huge, dimpled smile. He was wearing pink pants. And still smiling.

"What happened to you?!" I asked, hardly able to contain myself.

"Oh, yeah," Pam said, obviously not bothered by the pants. "Well, he needed an outfit change, but the one you had in the diaper bag, well, we couldn't get it over his head. I tried and I tried, but it just wasn't working. And this was all I could find."

She went on to explain that her 6-year-old son couldn't stop laughing, and her 8-year-old daughter was nearly-offended. "He can't wear pink, Mom!" She had said, and suggested that Evelyn's navy blue duds should be swapped out for Ollie's pink ones. "I can't just switch their pants," Pam said. And so it came to be that our Oliver sported his more feminine side today.

I'm reminded of A Christmas Story, when Ralphie comes down the stairs wearing a home-made pink bunny costume sewn by his great aunt. His dad had announced, "he looks like a pink nightmare!"

Well, while Oliver is certainly pink, his state is hardly the stuff of nightmares. That is, until we release this photo at his high shool graduation.

Sorry, kid.