(Note from Eric: Tammy wrote this piece some time ago, but I was supposed to get the picture to go with it, and , well…)
Where did the time go?! We went through the list tonight of all the costumes Johann has had over the years. At 6 months, Johann was a panda. The next year he was Winnie the Pooh. After that he was a purple dog, a rainbow butterfly, a pumpkin, a groundhog dressed up as a bunny, an elephant in his pajamas, and Animal from the Muppet Show. The Animal costume only took me about a week to put together. All the others took at least a month’s worth of spare time to make. But when Johann decided that this year he wanted to be Archimedes, I breathed a sigh of relief. Even though I felt a little guilty about not putting a lot of time into his costume this one year, I am busy sewing clothes for him. To me a warm double layer fleece jacket is more important to have in the greater scheme of things.
Johann as Archimedes,
originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
Eric joked about letting Johann be the naked Archimedes, streaking through the streets of Mystic for his Halloween fun joyfully shouting “Eureka!”. Johann immediately seized on that and begged me to let him do it. After a while I wasn’t entirely sure if they were joking or serious! Besides the obvious issues that would arise, my excuse was that it would be too cold and I didn’t want Johann to get sick. Johann accepted that reason. I asked Johann what Archimedes wore when he did get dressed. He didn’t run around naked all the time. So we came up with a toga made of several yards of muslin wrapped over warm clothes, a twisted braid I had in my trims box for a belt, and lots of well placed safety pins. This costume took a record 10 minutes! We had a paper mâché box shaped like a book, which Johann decorated to be Archimedes’ mathematics book, The Method. He carried that with him and showed it to people who asked who he was supposed to be.
Johann was a little disappointed that so few people understood. I told him it didn’t matter if they figured it out. The costume was for him, not them. One woman asked me if Archimedes was a “Greek god or something”, so you can see what we were up against. Although most people hadn’t ever heard of the name and had no clue whatsoever. It was all Greek to them, I guess.
Anyway, the best guess was from the son of a chemistry professor, which pleased Johann. He asked Johann if he was an ancient Greek and which one, then nodded his approval at Johann’s answer. Johann didn’t feel as discouraged after that. And I felt good because I was able to make both things on time. Johann was happy with his costume and he loves his new fuzzy warm jacket.
One Comment
Neat! I’m sure glad you thought of a reason not for Johann to run around naked as Archimedes!!! I’m looking forward to seeing his new warm fuzzy jacket too!
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