Where I dress up in tights to amuse my children

Last night was Halloween, and with Halloween comes Trick-or-Treating, and candy, and, most importantly, costumes. A few months ago, we started asking what each of them might want to be — CJ seemed torn between Anakin Skywalker (despite his innate geekiness, he doesn’t understand that Anakin & Darth Vader are one & the same person) and Yoda. Leila wanted to be whatever you suggested that she be (which meant “a princess,” “a butterfly,” “Jessie from Toy Story,” “a bat,” “a My Little Pony”).

However, one random day, my son was at my mom’s house, and she had a toy catalog. CJ saw Batman toys, and became quite interested in who Batman was. Well, “interested” is an understatement, he started becoming obsessed with anything Batman. And, of course, as the number of days to Halloween counted down, the number of bats included in decorations increased…feeding his Batman obsession.

Soon after CJ discovered Batman, my daughter started demanding that her name be Princess. Certain members of my family are far from guilt-free in this transformation. But, as she demanded to be called Princess, she had to be “princess” for Halloween. And, if people weren’t going to call Leila by her name, CJ wasn’t going to stand for that, so he demanded to be called Batman.

And with Princess & Batman, our costumes were figured out.

The thing is, I can’t let my kids have all of the fun. So while Duffy set out to sew CJ’s Batman costume, and my mother-in-law started on Leila’s princess costume, I scoured eBay to put together a Robin costume, because every super hero needs his sidekick (even if his sidekick is about 6 times the super hero’s size).

With a Robin costume, however, there was no way around tights….fortunately, I have really nice legs.

In putting the costume together, I wanted to minimize any “throw-away” components . . . money might not be “tight,” but it’s certainly not plentiful — spending $50 on a costume that I’d wear once just wouldn’t fly. However, spending $50 if I’d get to re-wear most of it, well, that’s an entirely different story.

I started by finding a bright red, sleeveless t-shirt, and then a Kelly-green sleeved T-shirt . . . with one over the other, I had Robin’s top. Then I went searching for a pair of red shorts . . . but there were none to be found in men’s sizes. There were, however, red “cheerleader-style” shorts that I could order in XXL that looked like they matched the red, sleeveless t-shirt for cheap, from the same eBay store that I’d be buying the t-shirts from (meaning minimal shipping). All that was left were the tights.

And, on eBay, I found a pair of double-queen, opaque, kelly green nylons for a few bucks.

All together, I spend $17 on the costume, $8 of which I’ll likely never wear again. I had a mask for bedroom play helping me to sleep while traveling that I cut some eye-holes in, and Duffy bought some cheap yellow fabric to fashion a cape in the same (though larger) pattern that she made CJ’s batcape.

Of course, my mother-in-law, who may take her “sewing hobby” more seriously than Yo-Yo Ma takes playing that silly ‘cello of his, made a tremendous Lapunzel1 costume.

I knew I had things right when CJ had spent the last week demanding that I put on my Robin costume. All told, it was a truly wonderful night.

The Dynamic Duo
Lapunzel

Batman, being held by Robin in tight-tights

A smiling Robin


 The princess pattern they used was Rapunzel . . . but as CJ has called her “La” since he’s been able to “talk,” and, perhaps, since we’ve picked up calling my daughter “La” since then, Lapunzel works

18 comments

      1. it is.

        Though now I’m part of the conspiracy, as I have the ability to fix the original typo, but chose not to, as it would make the amusing reply less amusing.

  1. So, um, the shorts were $8 ??? Just you know, trying to figure out what you’re keeping and what you’re discarding. Ahem.

    As for my costume I dressed as a parent who wanted to be out there chasing kids around. I think I did a convincing job.

    1. That sounds like a highly convincing costume.

      The shorts and the shipping were $8 . . . I don’t remember the full breakdown . . . I guess it was $2 for the shorts, $3 for shipping, and $3 for the nylons (with free shipping), but I could be all wrong on that.

      I have absolutely no idea what I could, possibly, use size XXL “cheerleader shorts” for.

  2. Best green legs I’ve seen 🙂 Drag queens the world over are looking for that shade now! Awesome costumes on everyone — but what about Duffy?

    1. Duffy was too busy working her magic on CJ’s costume to really put together something for herself . . . but, at CJ’s insistence, she put on a witch’s hat. Because, apparently, she was supposed to be a witch.

  3. Aw, superheros and their princess! Of course, if your princess is anything like mine, she’s more than capable of taking care of herself and possibly taking down her superhero brother as well …

    1. Leila certainly has a sneaky way of taking care of herself, but she’s more likely to turn to waterworks than to really stand up for herself. At least, it’s that way if she knows we’re looking.

    1. I don’t know how you women do it. Mind you, I’m pretty sure my legs are a bit, um, bigger than most women’s legs, the whole tight-process was really damn uncomfortable.

      Though I might finally have the slightest bit of a clue of what it’s like to take off your bra after having it on all day, if the release of a certain part of my anatomy, after being smushed by tights for several hours, is any indication.

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