growing up

A list of the things Sam has said he wants to be when he grows up (over the past two weeks):

- a space shuttle driver
- a garbage truck driver
- a woman (not exactly that he wants to be one, but I think he said "when I grow up and my hair gets really long I will be a woman")
- a fireman
- a scientist who studies planets


In more immediate-term growing-up news, Sam's desperate to hang out with the slightly older boys in his class, a clique of 3, one of whom seems especially bent on excluding him. It's heartbreaking to watch; Sam's not quite at the age where he 'gets' intentional meanness and exclusion, so he just gets hurt by it. Obviously this kind of thing isn't going to go away for years (well, ever, really) but watching it as a parent hurts. (It's also a strange side effect of Sam's preschool/daycare being a co-op that I get to watch these interactions first-hand, and have to stop myself from throttling the kids doing the excluding.) While I don't feel like I want to micromanage his social life, we're also making efforts to schedule play dates and other out-of-school interactions with other classmates with whom he plays more compatibly.