Carnival
The evening before the start of Lent is the origin of Carnival, but it's always Spring break in the Belgian schools at that moment. While there were a lot of carnival celebrations in Belgian cities previous days, schools celebrated carnival the week before. In Beertje's class they prepared the little kids slowly to all those dressed up people that can be intimidating to them. They first learned about the circus and clown's with a red nose etc. and then how you can dress up to be a clown too. So a few weeks ago he always returned home with a red painted nose. Slowly they explored other ways to dress up. On Tuesday - the day before carnival at school - they all returned with face paint.
I felt lucky that I was well aware about carnival on time and that I didn't get surprised by a last minute news letter from school. Since the children inherited a box with dress-up clothes, I didn't need to search last minute for clothing. Yet it was a difficult decision for the children to make their choice: ninja, Marshall from Paw Patroll, pirate, lion, ... Beertje tended to choose onesies, which are not allowed at his age in school since he can't go to the toilet independently with them. So I had to push and convince him to be a knight with success in the end. Pheww. After a week of claiming to be a ninja, Kabouter changes his mind and insisted to be a pirate instead...fine by me.
While I felt so much in control and happy for prepping 2 toddlers so easy for their carnival I took out my iron - as I always do- to iron name tags on the chosen clothes. And then, already way past bedtime, it happened: apparently the pirate jacket was made out of some super thin plastic-based. I saw it melted the jacket and in a mindless quick reaction I took my blouse to cool off the iron and protect the pirate jacket...and as a result I also wrecked my blouse. Grrreeat.
I felt like crying. How was I going to tell Kabouter that I screwed up his pirate jacket? Was I going to surprise him by forcing him to wear something else? to combine the other pirate attributes with some other non-matching cape or so? Or to be a ninja after all? Damn damn damn. Thanks to my non existing sewing skills and material I have no solution for the pirate jacket. He'd just have to be a brave pirate with a jacket with holes due to too many adventures.
In the next morning I explained him what happened and apologised to him. He was quite disappointed but serene. I don't think I managed to convince him that he looked more brave with extra holes in his jacket. In combination with his T-shirt the hole wasn't too bad and so he put on his pirate clothes.
And so of we went...a mom with her little prince and her little pirate to a school full of fairies, princesses, panda's lions tigers foxes and chickens, skeletons, cowboys, ...
And they clearly romped around a lot since they were knackered in the evening and dirty like hell. A good day.
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