Has anyone else noticed that phone calls from my mother lead
to nothing good? This one started off like any other with talk of what the
youngin’s were up to (one at school, the rest tormenting each other) and what
the weather was going to be like that day (hot). And then…
“I found a Spider Man costume for Red.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I bought it…I just don’t know if I should give it to him
now…or should I save it…?”
I am not sure who she thought she was kidding. We both knew
darn well she was giving that kid a Halloween costume in August. And I knew
that I was going to have to peel the smelly thing off of his red-headed little
body once it was so stiff with crust that he could no longer bend his joints.
Red was psyched about the
Spiderman costume. He had it on faster than you can say “Peter Parker.” The
squirming began immediately. Next came the whining. The tears followed shorty thereafter.
The suit was way too big. Children
clearly have no concept of a first world problem. I had to talk him down from
the ledge before I could even suggest a solution. It took 10 minutes to calm
him down enough so that I could roll up his pant legs and only 30 seconds for
my neatly rolled rolls to unroll. Cue squirming, whining, and crying.
Luckily, (and by “luckily” I
mean to refer you back to my first sentence where I pointed out that my mother
is trouble) my mom was able to rubberband his costume to his feet. Somehow THIS
made the kid happy. That is, until he started to lose feeling in his feet.
Red and I agreed to a
schedule of rubberband “on” time alternated with periods of “off” time in order
to allow blood flow back to his feet. Time flies when you are having that much
fun and soon it was time to meet Eldest at the bus.
Does anyone know what is the
appropriate shoe for a Spiderman costume? Because I do not. What I do know for
certain is that none of the pairs of shoes Red put on were it. By the 152nd
pair I had to insist he leave the crocs that change color in the sun on or Eldest
was going to end up riding the bus all the way back to school…again.
The most memorable part of
waiting for Eldest’s bus was that it was not memorable at all. I was standing
next to a three-foot-tall Spiderman—in August—and no one looked at me funny.
Not the neighbor waiting for her daughter, not the bus driver, no one. Has the
neighborhood come to expect this type of thing from our household? I am not
going to think too much about that.
I was just counting down the
seconds until bathtime. He had to take the stupid costume off for a bath,
right? I figured the worst case scenario was that I would not have to futz with
the rubberbands while he was in the tub. But really I was hoping that he would
forget all about Spiderman alltogether while he was asleep. That could happen,
right? Lie to me. I like it.
When bathtime finally came, Red
stripped off his beloved Spiderman costume to reveal that he was bare-butt
neked under the thing. And then he announced that he was wearing the Spiderman
costume to bed. That is something that I really love about Red. He knows how to
make a bad situation worse, and then really make it bad.
“You can wear the costume,
but you CANNOT wear the rubberbands.”
“Why not?”
“Because they will cut off
your circulation and your feet will fall off.”
“No they won’t.”
“Yes, they will.”
“No they won’t.”
“Yes. They. Will. I read an
article on the internet about a little boy just your age who wore his Spiderman
costume to bed and left his rubberbands on and his feet fell off.”
“Well…I read on the internet
that he wore his rubberbands and he was fine.”
Touche little redhead,
touche.
I guess even Spiderman needs his mom to tell him to "knock it off and go to bed." So I did. Without rubberbands on his feet. Way to go Spidermommy!
