Something fishy going on here ....

My son came home from a birthday proudly displaying one of the cake toppers he got to bring home.

 

In his hand sat the red-headed Disney mermaid, Ariel

 

It was quite a competitive prize, I understand, since there were only 4 of these cake toppers, and when my boy got one, it pushed one of the other covetous little girls to tears.

 

I smiled, not really certain what provoked this. My boy is all boy, trucks and trains and weapons, and he has never seen any Little Mermaid movie trailers, or books.

 

He pointed out her "nursies", discreetly kept in a green bra. Hmmm. We had to go over that particular clarification, yet again, but it made me think for a moment that maybe he got her because he thinks she's attractive.

 

About a day later, I found him with his legs tucked into his pillow. "Look, Mommy, see my tail. I'm a mermaid."

 

Then it clicked. His love of sea creatures has led him to a sea creature that is part human that he now wishes to emulate.

 

I tried to fix the vocabulary slightly. You can't be a mermaid, sweetie. But you can pretend to be a merboy.

And henceforth, I became MerMommy.

 

Soon we were in his room, legs wrapped in pillow cases, pretending to swim around and look for fish. Then we wanted to play trains, but I had to explain that merboys don't have trains since trains don't go in the water. My son thought about that for a moment and abandoned his tail.