P... p... p... pick up a costume

“Kindergarten is producing a movie, and your child is going to be a … penguin” said the note.

I have to confess I quite enjoy the costumes bit of being a parent. Sometimes not. I’m certainly not an “I wish it could be Hallowe’en every day” kind of a girl. But in small doses, I can enjoy putting together a costume now and again. My prowess extends from the tooth fairy (easy) to Martin Luther King Jr (difficult).

A penguin isn’t that bad. Trust me. Just follow these eight easy steps.

1. Get cancer. Have chemo. Lose your hair. Buy a black hat. Grow your hair back, so that you no longer need the hat on a daily basis.
2. Make friends with someone slightly eccentric, who gives you a large bottle of yellow craft paint saying “I don’t need this any more, but you have kids, you might find a use for it”. Put paint in cupboard.
3. Three years later, remember the paint, and its location. (This is by far the most difficult step in making the costume. If your expertise doesn’t reach to this feat of memory, you can always go to a shop and buy some. Less emotionally satisfying, but a similar result.)
4. Paint yellow penguin beak on brim of black hat. Squish with elastic band. When child says she can’t tolerate the elastic band across her forehead, remove elastic band and discover that the brim remains bent into pleasing beak shape on its own.
5. Find black pyjama bottoms that older sibling has grown out of.
6. Find your own favourite black fleece top and say “I’m sure nothing will happen to it. It’ll be fine.” Turn up the sleeves a good few inches.
   
7. Spawn genius older child (you have to do this bit a few years in advance) who says “Hey, Mom, you could use those swimming flippers for the feet”. If you don’t want the added expense of the extra child, and the subsequent swimming lessons with a teacher who requires flippers, you could purchase yellow socks. But then you'd also have to purchase black pyjama bottoms (see 6).
8. Spend 25 cents in Wal-Mart on a piece of white felt, for chest and eyes.

And ta-da! There’s your penguin.