He's Just Like Them!

If you have ever seen the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, there are two characters who are not aliens. In the final scene Donald Southerland (not an alien) is walking down the street in a kind of daze, the girl in the story runs up and tries to talk to him, only to have him shriek at her in an alien voice, letting her know he had become one of them. This same type of scene happened to me with my son recently. We were at a tee ball game of a friend and were priveliged enough to sit in the dugout. My normally docile, loving child suddenly turned into one of the other 4 and 5 year olds around him. Yelling, trying to hang from the rafters, and generally being a disruption. As you can imagine, I thought my child was different, but when put in the same area as others he quickly took on their personality, I was stunned. I admit the dugout is one step away from a guys locker room, it's smells like sweat and there are lots of junivile jokes. I guess in a way I should be relieved, he's normal, but at the same time it's a sign he's growing up and I'm having a hard time dealing with that as I said before. I want my child to be different, not in a nerdy no one wants to be around him sort of way but in a think for himself don't follow the crowd sort of way and I guess this scared the heck out of me. There is only so much warping I can do to him before his mother steps in so he has to do some of it on his own. I don't want him to play sports, I want him to want to stay home on weekends, not care about whats popular and whats not but to be himself no matter what people think. There is still time, he's only 3 and a half so I'll keep working at it and maybe if I pretend that he isn't growing up it won't happen, but I doubt it.