Fitting In

For the past 4 years, Micah has pretty much been the walking billboard for my shirts. At least half his wardrobe is personally handmade. He has his favorites, of course. The iron-on Toy Story that we got from Walmart, the screen printed Spiderman - you know, anything that isn't stitched with love by mom. Not that he dislikes my shirts; he wears them and has faves among those as well. But the thing is, Micah wants nothing more than to wear shirts like every other little kid wears. Shirts featuring super heroes and Disney characters. Shirts that aren't handmade.

Micah's teacher ordered matching shirts for the class party at Christmas. All the kids had the same snowman on their shirts, and I personalized them with each student's initial. It was requested that all shirts the parents provided were either red or green, which helped to make them even more cohesive.

It was a few weeks ago that Micah saw his snowman shirt in the clean laundry and became incredibly excited over his find. He insisted on wearing it right then and there. And the next time it came out of the wash, he wanted to wear it again. In fact, if given a choice of what shirt to wear from his dresser, he'll choose that one. Quite excitedly, I might add.

So I learned that Micah really does like my shirts, but still really just wants to fit in and be a regular kid. Now that the regular kids in his class are also wearing a handmade shirt, it's incredibly cool. In fact, cooler than cool. Micah has a shirt that exactly matches everyone else's shirt.

Everyone just wants to fit in. Maybe especially because he's so different, fitting in means more to Micah than it does to my other kids. These are things we can't just ask him and get an answer about. Darn that lack of speech thing.