No Bob the Builder This Year

What does my train-loving, hammer-wielding 3-year-old want to be for Halloween?

A ladybug.

"He'll change his mind 10 times between now and Halloween," I thought. But he's stayed very solid for the last 3 weeks and I know from experience that it's not a good idea to wait until 2 days before Halloween to get a costume, so we bought a ladybug costume today. He wore it around the house and made a very cute ladybug.

When he was around 18 months, someone handed him a little boy doll, and then took it away, saying, "Oh, but that's a doll. Boys don't play with dolls." Naturally, my response was, "Of course he can play with dolls if he wants to." He has a baby doll given to him before Ben was born and beyond a little initial interest, leaves it completely alone. He likes going into the play houses in front of Toys R Us, but without a word, he skips the Barbie one. We didn't push Thomas the Tank Engine on him, but he gravitated to it like one of those little magnetized freight cars.

But now he wants to be a ladybug, and I'm having a bit of a hard time with it. I keep feeling compelled to turn him into a guy ladybug, like Francis from A Bug's Life. I think the best plan is to dress Ben up as a flower, and take lots of photos of them for submission to their high school yearbooks.