Pop quiz

Today, in the face of a busy week, Mouse has been focused on:

a) Getting her class planned through the midterm in two weeks so that all she'll need to do is the grading.
b) Planning out and researching her paper for her seminar.
c) Catching up on the readings she's been barely skimming for the past couple weeks.
d) Making a Winnie-the-Pooh costume from scratch since, crap, Halloween's on Tuesday and what do you mean everyone's sold out of nearly every costume (and certainly every costume the boy would consider) and wouldn't it be mortifying if he were the only child without a costume at his class' party.

We've all been sick, for weeks now--doctor says it's probably a series of viruses and we just need to wait it out. The Halloween costume has been on my mind. This is the first year that we've left the decision to our son. He occasionally changes his mind or asks to be several things at the same time, but Pooh has been the number one choice. Everytime I've been in a store with children's clothing, I've been on the lookout for yellow sweats or a similar outfit, figuring I could make a hood out of some felt I have for the ears and throw a red T-shirt on top. Voila, instant Pooh bear. I did something very similar for my wife many years ago to great success.

But something quickly became apparent. Bright yellow sweats are not "in." In fact, I've come to appreciate just how hard it can be to find solid colored, plain clothes for children. Everything has some sort of printing on it. I could find a yellow sweatshirt, but not the pants, not any yellow pants at all. Not at Target, not at the Bay, not at Old Navy, not at (shudder) WalMart--and there must be some place I'm leaving out.

My other choice was yellow footed pajamas. When I was a kid, footed pajamas served as the basis for many of my costumes: pink pjs with a tail and ears on a headband--tada, I'm a mouse (kind of appropriate, huh?). But yellow footed pjs? Only pair I ever saw were very pale yellow with a floral print. The color was not quite right and I wasn't entirely sure I could cover up the flowers with Pooh's red T-shirt. And other than this pair, I could not find a single pair of 4T footed pajamas (I swear, I wore them until I was around 10, and I was tall for my age) and no solid colored long john pjs.

I even decided I would break my usual tradition of homemade costumes (or at least assembled from various bought items) and just buy one. Went to the Disney store. All that was left: Peter Pan, a couple costumes from Pirates of the Caribbean, and nearly any princess you can name. My son has seen neither Peter Pan nor Pirates of the Caribbean, and regardless of how progressive we are, the Little Mermaid is out. WalMart had a Tigger costume, which would have been acceptable, except it was a 2T. So I bought them out of yellow flannel material and unpacked my sewing machine. The "pattern" is one of his 4T footed sleepers. I cut the legs a little narrow and have had to add a strip of material to make sure they'll be loose enough.

Luckily, we just bought a red sweatshirt from Old Navy, which will go nicely over the yellow suit and hide the slash in the front for easy entry (I may be handy, but zippers are not my thing and I've misplaced my velcro). I'm not sure we'll do a lot of trick-or-treating since everyone's under the weather, but we'll get dressed up long enough to hit a couple of places and let people ooh and aah over the adorable Pooh bear.