September 16, 2011

All for a Fancy Dress

Last week was stressful for me - reason being that kiddo had a fancy dress competition at school this week and I had absolutely no clue as to what I wanted to dress him up as. We were informed almost 3 weeks in advance - which I guess is sufficient notice. When I told kiddo about it, he immediately said that he wanted to be Spiderman and lazy as I am I was quite happy about his choice as we already had a Spidey costume at home. Nothing to think of, nothing to do - all was ready. I even thought of teaching him the spiderman ditty to go along with the costume. The happiness was very short lived though. A week before the event, I got a shocker from his class teacher when she very firmly wrote in everyones school diary 'No superhero and fairy costume allowed'!!

I am not at all creative or even imaginative when it comes to fancy dress costumes (considering that I wanted something that Adi could be comfortable in) and so here I was with just a week left and with no costume in mind. Got a couple of ideas from friends but it involved too much work for poor old me.  Did a frantic search on the internet and didn't find anything much - apart from the usual pirate, superhero and halloween costumes - or maybe I didn't search hard enough. The only idea I liked was one of a banana tree but Adi wasn't too keen about it.  For a couple of days I pondered about sending him with a Masterchef apron with a few lines on cooking and also got a thought of dressing him up as Anna Hazare. Both had simple costumes and Adi seemed to like the Masterchef idea and wanted an immunity pin to be a part of it too!! But with all the work going on at home I couldn't get around to getting the apron stitched and the event was getting very close. So there I was with just a week left for the event and no costume on hand!! Worried, I was!

And then it so happened that I went to a shop to get a painting framed and this place also had lots of plastic plants. I looked around a bit and found some plastic leaves and also some mangoes. The tree idea came back to me again and I asked Adi if he would like to be a Mango tree and he was quite happy about it (mango happens to be his favorite fruit). So I bought some and then the next two days went by thinking on which dress I could stick them on and found nothing suitable. By the time I got a brown kurta-pajama stitched and ready it was already weekend and the event was on the Monday. We had a packed schedule for the weekend with lunches and dinners happening all around Bangalore and in between all that I was stitching the leaves on his dress!! (Oh God, I never thought that I would end up sewing - I just hate it!). And then Sunday morning I realized there just weren't enough leaves to make him look like a tree. I quickly sent hubby off to buy some more and just as my luck would it - the shop was closed! With no Plan B in mind, we decided to check out if there were any mango trees on the way to our lunch destination (Basavanagudi). And every time I saw one, I yelled 'Mango tree Mango tree Stop'. Of course, they were all too high or inside someone's compound but that didn't matter :) On our way back, we finally found one inside a deserted compound and we quietly went in and plucked lots of leaves :)  So there I was finally, sitting up late in the night and making my son's fancy dress costume with real mango leaves hoping that it would look OK. Even if it didn't, there was nothing I could do as the event was the very next day! :)

The costume looked decent enough. I consoled myself that at least it wasn't a ready made one. The kid is just in UKG and I have to put in so much effort for a fancy dress competition. I am already dreading the years to come by!! Kid didn't win any prize - although I feel I should get one - just for putting in the effort to sew :)





1 comment:

Aparna said...

Wow Poornima.. you went to so much trouble.. even stitched the kurta and all.. too much!! It looks really nice.. and i think the real mango leaves are a very good addition actually !!

I have to come up with a costume next week, and am thinking of the simplest things Shehan can go as :). Thanks for the Anna Hazare idea - I just might steal it ;) !!