A lonely Wonder Woman

Today, Maya and I attended a birthday party for a boy from her old day care. I spoke with the mother of the boy on Friday. She said they might have water balloons depending on the weather and we should bring a towel or swim suit. She also said it was a Super Hero themed birthday party and Maya can come dressed as a super hero. Halloween two years ago Maya was Wonder Woman and her costume has been floating between my house and Linda's house. I asked Linda if she had it and she had most of the accessories....head band, cap, wrist bracelets, belt and boot coverings, but not the actual costume. Turns out I had it. So, this morning we tried on her costume and it still fit ok. We put on a swim suit underneath the costume and off we went to the party. I brought along a change of clothing just in case she did get wet.

When we got there, we quickly noticed none of the boys that were already there were wearing any sort of super hero costume...or costume of any sort....not even the birthday boy. Maya didn't say anything right away, but she told me she wanted to change out of her costume. I didn't blame her. I told her to hold on, that perhaps other kids would show up in costume. Nope. Throughout the afternoon a lot more kids showed up...not a single one of them were in any sort of costume. The only other person that had a costume on was the balloon lady that showed up to make balloon "animals" for the kids. She was in a Wonder Woman type outfit.

This isn't the first time this has happened to Maya before. Back when she was in pre-school, the pre-school would have various theme days....each month would have one day where the kids would wear a certain color....October was orange, February was red, etc. Most, if not all, Maya would wear the color of the day. On a few occasions they would have a certain dress up day theme. On one of these days, Maya was dressed up...I think it was like wacky hat or crazy dress up day...something like that. Well, I was dropping her off at the class room and we looked inside and NO ONE was dressed up in the theme...not even the teachers. She didn't want to go into the room. I didn't blame her. I really felt awful for her. I didn't say anything like that, but inside I really just felt awful. I don't remember what I said to her, but I eventually convinced her to go into the class. Why don't the parents read the posters and calendar and help their kids participate in classroom activities? I didn't get it.

Well, for whatever reason, Maya didn't want to change out of her costume when I asked her after more of the kids showed up. She took off all the accessories but kept the costume on. Oh...they never had any water balloons and Maya asked me why she had to wear her swim suit. I told her I guess I misunderstood the mom...but as we were leaving the party, the mom apologized for not having the water balloons. She did have a lot of activities for the kids so I didn't blame her. Besides, I guess all the kids would have gotten their clothes all wet anyway.