A cowboy...
...a soldier...
...and a Kryptonian on extended vacation...
Throw in a construction worker and a cop costume and I was the Village People.
Dressing up in different costumes when I was a kid was a way to get the imaginative juices flowing. It was easy to picture myself fighting Darth Vader when I had a lightsaber in my hand. Wearing my Army camouflage made it feel like I was storming the beaches of Normandy, instead of storming the carpet in my living room. And I can't tell you how many times I tried to take off into the sky wearing that cape that my mom made me.
Playing dress up is something that you don't get to have many opportunities to do as an adult. There's an element of silliness to it, and it would lead to a lot of startled glances if I was to show up in my Superman cape to work (my mom has made an updated one that is a little larger, so maybe it won't look so weird after all). But that silliness is something that we shouldn't shy away from, especially when we're kids. On Friday evening, Elizabeth and I taught Elliot and Eleanor a very valuable lesson: Every once in awhile, being silly is the absolute best thing you can be.
To illustrate this, when the kids got home from daycare, I greeted them at the door in this:
That's my Superman cape, my Mickey Mouse ears, and my apron (I still had to get dinner ready, no matter how silly we were all being). Elliot quickly got into it, and there was only one thing that he wanted to wear. As you can see, it was his dragon costume.
Elizabeth had the great idea of going to the costume racks the day after Halloween last year, and she found really good deals on costumes that were a size ahead of where Elliot was at the time. The dragon was one of these finds (it's fitting, I think, that the dragon in Pete's Dragon was named...Elliot).
Elizabeth got into the dress up/silliness by taking up arms against the dragon onslaught (she was pretty fearsome with that sword and shield combo).
Eleanor did her best Erykah Badu impression...
We want to teach our children important lessons, like the difference between right and wrong or to treat others how you would like to be treated. We to challenge their minds and their hearts and their souls, and help them to grow intellectually and physically and emotionally and spiritually. We want to create an environment of love and acceptance and happiness.
And sometimes, a part of creating that environment is just being silly. Elliot loved running around his mom and dad in his dragon costume (Eleanor didn't know quite what to make of all the silliness...I think that deep down, she just wished she could participate more).
Dressing up in silly costumes and laughing at one another was a fantastic way to kick off our weekend. Who needs to wait for Halloween when you can throw on a cape or a dragon outfit any night of the week and see where adventure can take you.
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