For the past month or so, Henry has been living in various costumes. It’s mostly been part of the ongoing superhero obsession, but costume choices range from the now nearly worn-out Power Ranger costume that he picked out for this Halloween weeks ago, to a Zorro-esque costume I whipped up out of construction paper on demand after he’d been watching the Backyardigans “Masked Retriever” episode, a vampire, or last year’s now much too small dinosaur costume, to every possible combination of capes, wings, masks, or hats in his costume basket. Recent favorites: “Black Widow Man” (a “bad guy” of his own invention, worn to the doctor’s office–black cape, paper Zorro hat and mask, plastic spider ring), and “Captain Naked” (a black cape and his birthday suit, worn only in wild runs around the house before and after bathtime).
Lately, on the rare occasions he’s not already wandering around in a cape or a mask on the playground when I pick him up from pre-K, he goes inside with me, makes a beeline for the costume area, and demonstrates whatever the day’s favorite is–a bat, a pirate, whatever.
Today, after demo-ing a soldier helmet (with jaunty salute) and the pirate costume, he announced that “Drewbie weared the princess dress,” then asked me to help him on with a mermaid costume, then a “princess” costume (actually a long, slinky nylon dress), then a tutu, spinning around in each, fascinated by the different levels of twirliness. When I asked whether he wore the princess dress in class, he said, “No, just the girls” (despite previous comment about Drew). When I asked why he wanted to dress up after school instead of during school, he said, “Because I don’t want my friends to see me.” When another boy came in with his mom, he hid behind me, announcing, “I don’t want Elijah to see me!” and started pulling off the dress.
It reminded me of a few weeks ago at his friend Lily’s house, but a few weeks ago when they were playing dress-up and he announced, “I want to wear the princess dress but I don’t want anyone to see me” (though it was just he and Lily and me and Lily’s mom), and hid in the bathroom to try it on, but after a couple of minutes was out in the living room twirling madly, and wore the dress (plus wings, crown, clickety-clackety mules, and wand) for the rest of the afternoon.
It’s so hard to know whether to be charmed that he’s still comfortable enough to include dresses and tutus in his widely varied costume play or bothered that he’s already so clearly internalized the idea that doing so is something to be embarassed or ashamed about. His dad seems to think that it’s a healthy recognition that “that’s not appropriate.” But this free-to-be-you-and-me mama waxes nostalgic for the days when the two-year old boys in his class would fight over who got to wear the princess shoes with his fairy costume! Not to mention the days when Henry could happily be a lion or a polar bear or monkey for a week solid with no costumes required. Or frankly, anything that doesn’t involve either “shooting,” “fighting,” or whining for trips to Target RIGHT NOW.
Anyway, he’s been begging for more costumes almost every day and I’ve promised him we’ll hit the sales after Halloween when things “cost better,” as he likes to say. It will be interesting to see what he chooses. For tonight, it’s camouflage jammies and fairy wings.
Post-Halloween update: After all of the above, Henry decided the weekend before Halloween that he wanted me to make him a ghost costume by cutting holes in a sheet, after seeing this trick demonstrated by the Peanuts gang on the Great Pumpkin movie and in a couple of books. He wore this for about a week, to school for their party, and up til Saturday afternoon was planning to wear it for the big night, until he figured out how hard it is to eat under a sheet. So Power Ranger it was. Unfortunately, I never got a good photo of the ghost costume, because it was my very favorite.
