I want to be someone!

Last night I was working on the computer when Will came in for the 25th time in an hour. I was concentrating on what I was doing and trying not to lose my patience with him.

"What Will," I ask between clenched teeth, as I shake his restraining hand off the arm attempting to key in an email. "What do you want?" I really was stumped. I'd already gotten him two drinks, made three different trips to the kitchen for snacks, changed his movie twice because it was too scary, and button and unbuttoned his pants so he could go pee -- in the last 20 minutes.

"I want to be someone."

Now, my mind is on the email I am composing so I'm not sure what I missed. Sometimes Will likes to pretend he's an animal and will go all day insisting you call him "puppy" or "kitty". Hell, one day he was a puppy/kitty that both barked and purred.

"You are someone," I assured him. "You are Will."

"No," he insisted. "I WANT TO BE SOMEONE!"

I am reluctantly being pulled further and further away from my train of thought. I turn to look at him, perplexed. Sometimes he pulls the weirdest, most grown up, piece of an overheard conversation from TV and starts sprouting it with no clear idea of what he is talking about.

"You are someone, Will," I replied slowly as I looked him in the eyes, trying to figure out what he really was trying to say. "You can be anything you want honey." Surely he's too young for the 'with hard work and determination' speech. Hell, he's only 4.

"I want to be the Incredible Hulk."

Oh, now I understand. I get up and he follows me into his room where I open the large drawer on the bottom of his dresser. It's filled with every costume I can find at thrift stores in his size. Spider Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Knight, Fisherman, Mr. Incredible, and yes . . . the Incredible Hulk.





Where are my costumes? Because, sometimes I just want to be someone too.