Dressing up antics

This week we celebrated Book Week and dressing up became our top priority (AGAIN!). The problem with having book obsessed children is that settling on just one favourite title or character generates a seemingly never ending discussion. In the end I tried to get them to just choose a character who would be easy to dress up as. Not a very highbrow literary approach I know. However, seems most of my creative juices were used up getting last weekend's PIRATES costumes together. For a moment I  thought maybe the kids would agree to wear their pirate costumes. No such luck.

 

The girls must have changed their minds about 30x in three days. It was seriously doing my head in. We spent more hours at the party shop perusing costumes, at home going through wardrobes, pouring over books and googling "mothers going insane over book week".  It was all there.

 

Finally I got Mim to agree to go as Lucy from The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. We had a nice Disney dress (this was for Lucy after she was crowned a Queen of Narnia by Aslan), the pirate belt we'd picked up at an op shop, a felt crown that came with the knight's costume I paid $25 for and Jesse refused to wear (yes, that's me screaming madly in the background), and the finishing touch - a little suede bag holding a bottle of my perfume (a cheap one!) which was the special healing potion Lucy was given by Aslan.

Mim was really happy with this costume, UNTIL we came up with Eleanore going as Silky from the Magic Faraway Tree. Silky gets to wear wings and have a wand. Mim was not happy. Much crying ensued.

Maybe you're thinking two Silkys would have been the easy answer to this problem. However that would assume that Ellie was happy with Mim being the same (she wasn't) and that Mim would wear her Disney dress as Silkie (oh no, she wanted to wear Ellie's dress - aghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!)

Jesse wanted to go as Tintin - but I couldn't find the blue jumper, brown pants or stuffed white dog. I found a great knight's costume at the party shop and in desperation (I may buy shares in the party shop) bought it telling myself that he'd love it too. He didn't. Something about not wanting to look silly in front of his friends. Honestly.

He decided to go as Joe Hardy, or Frank Hardy from the Hardy Boys. I never worked out which one he was. His costume consisted of a shirt, jeans and shoes. No one knew who he was, but he didn't care. Sigh.

In the end, they all had a great time and declared the Book Week Parade had been a great success, worth all the effort (or lack thereof). I had a strong coffee afterwards and, eventually, had to agree.