Superhero Insanity

The Kid is five now. Five is a good age for superheros. Some people might ease into this, but not us. Not when there's a superhero costume contest/ice cream party going down. (You can read the official press release about it here.) All proceeds from the party went to PAGER, which is something I really wish I'd known about when The Kid was still The Baby.

Anyway, there was a party, and The Kid owns a variety of superhero-themed jammies--plus, ice cream was involved. The Husband was going to be out of town that day, so it was the perfect way to kill an afternoon.

I tried to get the party started Friday night by Tivo-ing Superman because The Kid had picked out his Superman jammies to wear. I thought it would be helpful for the boy to see what the fuss was about, and, frankly, I never get tired of watching Christopher Reeve in skin-tight anything. I didn't remember the moving being hyper-violent, either, and, as I mentioned, The Kid is now five. Big boy movie time.

I was foiled in this grand plan, because the Tivo recorded a Star Trek movie (heavy on the borgs) instead. Okay. No biggie. We're still going to rock jammies in broad daylight. I put a lot of mousse in his hair in an attempt to do a swirling-bangs thing. It didn't necessarily work, but it didn't hurt, either.

The Husband made an important contribution to the outfit. He saw fit to bend a piece of rebar for the Man of Steel. Foolish me, I didn't think a five-year-old-boy swinging a piece of iron in public was a good idea. However, The Kid managed not to bop anyone on the head with it. I was impressed.

The party started at 1. In general, I hate to be late--even fashionably so--for anything (which is not the same thing as saying I'm never late. I frequently am--I just hate it when it happens), so we got there at 1. We walk in, and see this guy:



Yes. Spoon Man. He was there with his sidekick, Bone Boy (but you know about that long-standing no-kid-pictures-on-the-blog thing, right?). Apparently there's a song about Spoon Man that references Bone Boy, but really, it was just a four year old in his red jammies, a beret, and a brown cape. That's superhero enough for me!

Then, the TeaTotaler showed up.



His secret identity is really Alex Sanders, who organized the party, in part, for the Quincy Not-So-Fine-Arts Society. But on Saturday, he was the resident Villain, flinging tea bags at any adult who was paying attention. For the kids, though, he had bubbles. In the picture above, he's giving bubbles to The Kid. Note that The Kid is wearing a Batman jammie cape with his Superman jammies. You make due with what you've got.

Ge showed up with her boy.



Ge is one of my former students. She's also a photographer; I think she's going to do a more professional author photo for me soon.

Ge also used to watch Land of the Lost in Brazil when she was a kid; she was a little weirded out by the Ice Scream's full sized Sleestak. I was a little weirded out by the fact that Land of the Lost made it to Brazil.

Turned out that although we were there at one, the costume part of the party wasn't until 3:30. We had a lot of time to kill. The Superheros spent a lot of time trying to prove their super-ness by climbing the light post.



Oh, and there was music! Brought to you by Camel Man:



Yes. We won't go into the state of his camel humps. This is a family page.

So, finally, the costume contest. There were four entrants, Bone Boy, the Amazing Hailey, Superman, and Batman. Batman's younger brother, Iron Man, was too shy to stand up in front of everyone. Voting was based on crowd noise, because, clearly, these people had never met me before.

Batman, who had shown up at about 2:45, got third place. Superman, my boy!, got second because we'd been there longest. Amazing Hailey got first, mostly because she was the only one there who wasn't wearing jammies, but had, in fact, made her own costume.

The Kid got a superhero coloring book, a water squirter, and bragging rights.

Next time, though, he wants to be Iron Man.