Our son's costume has pieces from both houses and neither of us likes the result

I made the pirate vest. His dad made the cardboard robot helmet.

Our seven-year-old wants to wear both to school.

It's a dress-up day, and we had each offered to help on different evenings. I thought pirate was the settled plan. His dad thought our son had changed his mind.

Our son says he changed his mind twice and is now a robot pirate.

I told him the helmet didn't go with the vest. His dad said the vest might make the robot look unfinished. For a brief period, two adults in separate households found perfect agreement about the wrong thing.

The costume would look better if our son chose one of our ideas.

He asked whether we wanted the parts back.

I heard that question while adjusting the row of buttons I'd spent an evening attaching. I had meant, choose the clearer costume. He had heard, stop combining the things we gave you.

There is no contest, no assigned historical period and no request from school for a matching theme. I checked because I was hoping to find a practical reason to rescue my preference.

I found none.

His dad and I spoke directly. We can work out the ordinary school requirements before sending the pieces along. The aesthetic argument is ours. Our son doesn't need to adjudicate which parent's contribution deserves the rest of his outfit.

The helmet is silver. The vest is brown. He has drawn a small steering wheel on the robot's forehead because pirates need a ship.

I haven't told him that steering wheels generally go somewhere else. I'm trying to leave at least one part of this operation outside my jurisdiction.

He wants to call it Captain Beep. I cannot honestly improve on that.