The Halloween Parade

My son had his first ever big Halloween parade at his school on Friday. He has been in daycare since he was 3 months old but this school he's at now has 4 classrooms and way more people than before. So this was big for him.

The costume? I'm not sure if I've mentioned in on here before but he wanted to be Lizard Man from the Spiderman TV show. He watches Spiderman with his Mom (the Ex) and this is one of the bad guys. Basically it is some scientist named Dr. Connors that is working in the lab and he drinks some potion and becomes a lizard. And thus Lizard Man is born. I did a quick google search and found this image of a Lizard Man bobblehead for your reference:

So that is Lizard Man. But back to his costume, I put The Ex entirely in charge of his costume this year. I reminded her that back before he was born she talked about how she was going to whip out her sewing machine and make him the best costume in the world every year and he was going to be the envy of every kid. Well...this would be our 4th Halloween and I have seen no home-made costumes. So she took my challenge and said she would be completely in charge of his costume this year.

So this has been their thing. They planned it all together, they picked it out, they went to the fabric store and, true to her word, she sat down at her sewing machine and made our boy Lizard Man. She bought a lizard base (which was a dinosaur but she had to take all the "spikes" off the back and tail) and the bought a lab coat and some fabric and sewed purple pants and made the tail fit through it all... It is pretty good. I have to say she totally stepped up to the plate. He loves it. And I give credit where credit is due. She did really good.

It's hard to see in this picture but she made him happy and that's all that matters.

So here's the funny part. He has talked about this all week. Every day he has asked me how many days until his parade. He tried on the costume; he checked it hanging in his closet every night. He was stoked about this parade, I'm telling you. So we get there and get out of the car and I put his costume on and all of a sudden he has the face like he's going to cry. What the hell? So I kneel down and ask him what's going on and he says he just doesn't want to scare people. Huh? What? But for some reason he seemed to have a case of performance anxiety or something. Or that this big parade was all of a sudden a little bit scary, or whatever it was. But he got shy and weepy but braved through.

My gay boyfriend came with me because The Ex had to work and my mom couldn't come. It was sorta funny showing up with this hot guy after pretty much all of them had figured out that I was gay. Made them turn their heads a bit. And my son's favorite aide asked me if he was my brother (she and I have talked openly lots of times) because The Boy kept referring to him as Uncle B. I told him that he was my gay boyfriend and that he was a big part of The Boy's life etc... But we laughed about what everyone else was thinking.

The Boy got into it once we got inside his classroom and he did some crafts and stuff. And he marched the parade like a big boy. My little Lizard Man.

Oh and of course his sister was there too...