Friday, October 05, 2007

All dressed up

The Bunster has started Kindergarten and I have a little free time again. Which I'm using to update the ol' blog constantly with amusing anecdotes from my super busy yet fulfilling life. At least that's the fantasy.

Also, in this same fantasy, the house is beautifully organized and dust-free, my wardrobe is perfectly color-coordinated, I'm running four amazing-looking web sites, our cocktail parties are the delight of all our friends, my hair is always shiny and bouncy, and my nail polish never smudges. Actually, I do have that last one, since I'm not wearing any. I have commando fingers.

Back in reality, I'm currently figuring out how to make a rainbow Halloween costume for a five year old boy that looks both boyish and rainbow-ey. And that he can walk and sit down in. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll change his mind and be a pirate instead. Or a rainbow pirate.

Halloween is always one of my favorite holidays, even though I'm not really into the whole gory, scary thing. It's a holiday where you can dress up in a cool costume and eat lots of candy. What could be better?

The Bunster, though, only likes the candy part. He's really not interested in dressing up, on Halloween or most other times. Growing up, my sister and I had a large dress-up box full of glittery fun costumes. Before becoming a parent, I assumed my kid would, too. But the Bunster just isn't into it. He does like to play pretend and he has a good imagination, so it's not that he's unable to understand being something else for an evening. It's just that he has no desire to. He says he just wants to be himself.

I have to admire that, even though I don't completely understand it. I've always wanted to be someone else or some other version of myself, even if only temporarily. Whether the transformation is something as simple as evening clothes or as dramatic as an over-the-top Halloween costume, I still enjoy it tremendously, even though my trick-or-treat days have been over for decades.

I've never really examined this before, particularly since so many of my friends feel the same as I do. (That might have something to do with where I met many of my friends...comic book company, renaissance fair, martial arts class...hmm, I kinda see a pattern.) Plus, there are always tons of ads for adult Halloween costumes, so clearly I'm not alone here. But now that I have the Bunster so adamantly himself and nothing but, I have to wonder. Is it really human nature to want to transform yourself? Or is it just a cultural impulse that I might not even have if I hung out with different people? I'm inclined to the former, since so many cultures embrace some form of dressing up. But I am wondering.

Meanwhile, I've explained to the Bunster that you have to have some kind of a costume to go trick-or-treating. It can be Bunster-the-firefighter or Bunster-the-geophysicist (don't ask), I told him, but it has to be something. And he picked a rainbow. Maybe I should have let him go as Bunster-the-Kindergartner instead.

At least he likes the candy. Not liking that would just be weird.
 

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