Ollie is having trouble letting go of summer. Every day we tell him to wear pants or a long sleeved shirt, and he resists. “It’s too hot!” he says. “No it’s not, it’s 60 degrees outside right now!” we say (to deaf ears). He swears he will die of heat stroke if we make him wear long sleeves, and he swears he’s never cold.

Now that Oliver is in kindergarten, we have been trying to give him a little more autonomy. Or maybe I should say, trying to force him to take a little more autonomy, because he in no way is asking for it! He would rather do pretty much anything else. Every morning when he wakes up it takes 5 or 6 reminders before he actually gets dressed.

So when he does get dressed by himself, it is a bit of a surprise. On this particular morning, he did just that, telling us not to come into his room and then suddenly coming out fully dressed. “Okay,” I thought, “if he wants to ‘surprise’ us, fine. Whatever it takes for him to get dressed.” We noticed that he was wearing a short sleeve shirt under his long sleeve shirt, but this is not exactly an unusual fashion choice for Ollie. As long as he is presentable enough to leave the house, I couldn’t care less (see also, persistently wearing his shoes on the wrong feet every day for the last 3 years).

Until I got this message from Sara:

“i am sure that he got dressed quickly in his room this morning, wearing the long sleeve shirt like i asked, because he planned to take it off and switch to the short sleeve shirt as soon as he got to school!  it’s in all the pictures!  what a stinker!  maybe he is more ready for kindergarten than i give him credit for!”

Unfortunately for Ollie, this is 2015, and teachers like to send pictures throughout the day. Sure enough, as soon as he was out from under our watchful eye, he switched to the short sleeves, and he had planned it all along, which is why he was acting weird and secretive when we saw the undershirt.

This does strike me as a particularly “kindergarten” thing to do. Sometimes he seems so young, but then he reminds me he’s not anymore. What’s next, sneaking out of the house at night?

Fast forward to this morning. I had forgotten all about the incident above, and I was double checking his tooth brushing skills when I noticed something blue poking up from his waistband…sure enough, he had a short sleeve shirt tucked down the front of his pants!!

I stressed to him that he should not try to hide things from us, and that if he wanted to take a short sleeve shirt in case he got hot, he should put it in his backpack, not down the front of his pants. In fact, he should probably not put anything down the front of his pants.

Sometimes I think the only reason we have any control whatsoever as parents is that kids are so terrible at fooling us…