Thursday 5 March 2015

Not another dress-up day...

It's been a busy week year, and I've yet to reach that much-coveted feeling of having settled into my stride, when you realise you've have passed the "crisis management" post-New Year phase and settled into an almost mundane, repetitive weekly routine.  You don't know what I'm referring to? 

No, me neither.

Or at least I *think* I know what I am aiming for - in a kind of "I'll recognise it the minute I feel it" kind of way. Because we don't "do" routine here, or mundane, although I must admit some of us are genuine experts at "repetitive".

Despite being a true Aries in many respects, I actually don't need roller coaster levels of excitement. Boredom is really underrated in my opinion, or at least it is until the one or two days a year when I have more than the odd hour to myself and start wondering what on EARTH I am going to do with it!  (Get a dog/apply for a job/insert suitable knee-jerk response only applicable at that single point in time....) And with children on the Autism Spectrum, anything out of the ordinary is usually a recipe for disaster!

So on hearing that there was yet another "different" day in school my heart sank. World Book Day might sound idyllic but for kids who detest dressing up it's a tough call. For their parents it's a challenge set to bring the strongest parent to their knees. Such events are based on the assumption amongst teachers that children love dressing up. 

Not all, I assure you. 





The dilemma is always how do you create a costume adequate enough to:- 
  1. avoid school thinking you couldn't be bothered, 
  2. stop other parents thinking you forgot which day it was 
  3. and most importantly to ensure your child agrees to put it on?
We've had some close calls. 

J was "Captain Underpants" years ago - wearing completely normal clothes with a white sheet for a cape and an extra pair of pants on top of his trousers. He lasted about twenty minutes in costume apparently, but I passed The Test. My parenting skills had come under scrutiny and I successfully passed those three important goals above!

Having achieved such tremendous success with this ingenious strategy I managed to persuade H to dress up one year for World Book Day - as Captain Underpants. (Well, it worked so well first time round, why not?) I think we even re-used the outfit for Children in Need Day one year......


Another year we pretended we HAD forgotten which day it was. H was rather confused by the end of the school day, but managed to survive unscathed!

This year, the reality dawned on me that my smallest two are really not-so-small after all, and with only a couple of World Book Days left each I decided to push the boat out. This year, my children's costumes would be the envy of the playground - or at least make the twins feel proud of our efforts and enjoy their day. Because after all, that's far more important, isn't it?....

We deliberated for ages, tried on costumes, and then put them together. They tried them on, wore them for (shock horror!) longer than an hour or so and decided they were, after all, quite fun to wear.



Result!!!




So here we have Mildred Hubble, The Worst Witch, and Doctor Proctor. (Last minute name change but no one noticed!!) It was worth it for the photo shoot - and the fact that for just one day, two of my children ENJOYED dressing up.



We did leave the broomstick in the school's prop cupboard though. By the end of the day it's function had changed to that of weapon rather than flying equipment - but I think it looked rather good, don't you?!!

19 comments:

  1. Brilliant costumes well done!

    It's stressful isn't it, I'm secretly quite glad our school didn't dress up.

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  2. I feel your pain - my kids always hate dressing up for school days like this. They're both at Secondary school now so they don't have to do this any more - phew! They didn't even want to go to school on dressing-up days when they were small. My son is very literal about things and would only wear a costume that looked accurate and so home-made wasn't an option either.

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  3. Great costumes! I was so relieved our school didn't bother with World Book Day.

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  4. Ah they looked great. You're right though, not all kids like it and feel conscious. I despise world book day and hate figuring out what mine should wear as they don't come to me with many of their own ideas either ha.

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  5. aww they looked fab. My son got a book token and I am glad because I would have got all stressed if I had to find a costume haha x

    http://angelahamilton2014.blogspot.co.uk/

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  6. Our school never do the dress up days thankfully - I love your costumes, they look so cute x x

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  7. They look brilliant, well done! I think I'm the one who finds these days the most stressful!

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  8. Love the costumes. I have a child that HATES dressing up and hasn't bothered until recently. Mine were characters, but not really dressed up if that makes sense.

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  9. great ideas the world book days can be a pain!

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  10. I am lucky that mine love dressing up but our problem is Isaac's size - he is 7 so likes older books now but he is very little for his age so all the costumes are huge

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  11. I thought we'd escaped WBD this year because the school are doing red nose day head to foot red but my son was outraged and has demanded to be a red squirrel for that day after all. Still, I can see why these days are particularly stressful for some of the kids. Luckily my son's school don't do them too often, and when they do, there is very little competition for really impressive outfits. Those are great though! Love the witch one in particular!

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  12. Both of those outfits are brilliant!

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  13. Both the outfits are brilliant, and im loving the witch x

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  14. Love them both! Plus they look so proud of their costumes! #pocolo

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  15. Well done! I always feel so guilty because I dread these days, a least I only have one young that celebrates it now.

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  16. Lovely costumes.
    I'm loosing track of all the dress up days our school has and then all the pounds they want in exchange

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  17. great costumes for great books! .. i am not a fan of dressing up days either as we dont always have the funds to buy outfits and i am the most uncreative person ever lol

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  18. Those are fantastic costumes, last year our school did a 'paint a potato as your favourite character' for world book day. It was my favourite one yet lol. Thanks for linking up with #MultipleMadness

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  19. They're fantastic costumes. I can assure you that some teachers and TAs dislike dressing up days just as much!

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Many thanks for taking the time to comment, I really value your responses.

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