most courteous feathers

Last night I watched the three Law & Order: LAs on my DVR and felt like I'd accomplished something. Had I watched three Law & Orders in a row on a TNT marathon I would have felt like a lazy goodfornothing slob, but because they were waiting for me on DVR and I cleared out the queue it felt virtuous. Yet another reason DVR is awesome.
*
I got Nugget a new Spiderman shirt over the weekend, which blew his little toddler mind, and when he arrived at school on Monday I reminded him that he should show his friends his new shirt--a way to distract him from the fact that I was dropping him off at school and leaving, because dropoff has been difficult since his best friend changed schools.

It worked. He swaggered (seriously. he swaggers. it kills me.) into the other room, holding his sweatshirt open and throwing his chest out. He does the same thing with his Superman and Batman shirts. We could be sitting around eating dinner or something and suddenly he'll yank open his sweatshirt and yell "Supermyaaaan!" Just like that, with the "y" in "myaan."

And it wasn't the first time I'd used his obsession with licensed clothing--Toy Story and Cars are also favorites--to smooth the way at dropoff. Yesterday it occurred to me afterward: am I putting too much emphasis on material things? Does he think he needs a cool new t-shirt every week for kids to like him? And how do the other kids feel about it, that he's always coming in saying look at my cool new shirt or check out my temporary tattoo (yes. those too.)?

So it's started, already. Mostly in my head, probably, but I now know how unprepared I am to watch him navigate the social minefields to come.