Typically, my Halloween story is a scary one. This morning’s event, however, has superceded my regularly scheduled Halloween moment. This morning, the boys dressed in their halloween costumes for school. C is going as a policeman, and N (the three year old) as The Flash.

We’ve been talking about The Flash a lot since we first bought his costume with him. He’s the fastest superhero, faster even than Superman. N has really been looking forward to wearing his costume.

As soon as I put it on him, he said “I’m The Flash! I’m Super-Fast!” and struck a pose. I agreed with him, of course. “Yep, you’re The Flash.”

He immediately took off running around the living room. As soon as his brother finished putting his costume on, he took off running. “I’m faster than you are!”

The two brothers immediately had a race around living room. C was faster, of course. He is 2 years older. His little brother gave it a good try, though, really running hard. In fact, he was going so fast that he missed a turn and fell on to the tile.

He burst into tears. We gathered him up and he came to sit on my lap, still crying. It was strange. He doesn’t usually cry that much after a fall. Both the boys typically bounce up very quickly. He sat there on my lap, sucking his thumb, and then started tugging his mask off. I helped him get it off and then he said very quietly “Daddy, I don’t want to wear the Flash costume.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not super fast.”

He buried his head into my chest. I sat there holding him for a while. He had thought that the costume would make him as fast as the Flash. Instead, he was still being outrun by his brother. Even worse, he had fallen down during the race. Reality checks can be hard when you’re only three.

We sat for a bit and I talked about how it was all just pretend. He eventually agreed to wear the costume to school.

Then his mother came in and asked if he could wear his mask. “Maybe your teacher won’t know who you are!”

He thought that was a pretty cool idea and they went off to school with him dressed as The Flash.

Have a great Halloween everyone, and if you happen to end up in a race with a little guy dressed as The Flash, let him win, okay? It’s only one night.