With all the craziness of recent weeks, I’ve really dropped the ball on getting Mia’s costume together. Last year I made her this purple crayon costume out of felt (Claudine, then still a baby, went as Harold which was our lazy way of saying she was in costume, but really she was just in footed pajamas). Right after Halloween, Mia had her costumes all lined up for the next four years and this year she wanted to be a bat. Maybe you’ve already guessed that Mia isn’t such a girly girl, though out of peer pressure, she has taken more of an interest in dressing up in princess outfits when she’s with her girl friends. I can sense that this year she’s gotten a bit confused about the growing gender differences and play preferences between boys and girls because she can still wrestle with the best of the boys and she plays with boys more often on a day to day basis. So I can tell that she really wants to be a bat, but is a bit worried that she’ll be different from her girl friends who are all dressing up as princesses and ballerinas. I’ve secretly enjoyed the fact that she didn’t get into the princess phase, but understand completely about “fitting in”, so we decided that she will go as a “ballerina bat” this year. I’ll still make her some bat wings, but she’ll also put on a black tutu so it’ll be more, um feminine? I don’t know, it’s nuts that all this gender craziness starts so early. Even 2 years ago when she and her friends were 2-3 years old, the girls were dressing up as fairies and princesses. Mia wanted to be a moth, so she went as a moth. Gotta love my little girl and I hope she doesn’t change.