Spirit Week has begun!

Rah Rah Rah! And we kicked off the week with Pajama Day, always a favorite, mostly because it requires little effort. Or in our case, no effort. Well, Mark did a little. He crammed his feet back into the duck slippers (really, I'm surprised his toes didn't bust out of the duck's mouth), grabbed his stuffed monkey and he was good to go. He doesn't actually have any pajama "tops" per se, just random t-shirts that he wears with whatever flannel pj bottoms still reach close to his ankle area (I looked at him the other day and he was wearing pj pants that were CAPRI they were so short. Yup, he's still growing).

Kira resisted all of my efforts to enhance the cute factor of her in pj's. She wouldn't let me put her hair in pigtails. Or curlers. She wouldn't wear one of her sleep masks as a headband. She went sans animal, without blankets or bathrobes, just her pj's and a zip-up sweatshirt. Now I tell you, what fun is there in having an adorable little child if I can't dress her up? C'mon, it used to be like having one of my own giant Barbies, and now she's all miss do-her-own-thing. sigh.

Mark actually won a prize today in his age group (grades 6-8). In his last-minute, throw-together stuff, he was considered one of the two best in the category. Mark said that a lot of kids in the seventh and eighth grades didn't even participate at all. Are you kidding? It is PAJAMA DAY, PEOPLE! This is the easiest day of Spirit Week! This requires NO. WORK. AT. ALL. You have to put in more effort to NOT participate! You get to wear your PJ's to SCHOOL. And be all COMFY. When you are an adult and slogging off to work every day you would KILL for this opportunity! KILL, I TELL YOU! (yeah, listen to me. Like spending the day in pajamas is something I rarely get the opportunity to do. I could pretty much wear my pj's for a week at a time and nobody would notice.)

So now we head into the rest of the week, for which my assistance has been required. Tomorrow is Career Day. Kira is going as a SCIENTIST. Go, girl! She's wearing a "lab coat" (which is actually a supermarket deli coat that I wore one day in high school when I was doing food demos at work, and nobody ever collected it from me. Makes a great lab coat.) and I found a pair of heavy-rimmed glasses at Goodwill and knocked out the lenses. (blue frames, actually...for the "cool geek" look). Under the lab coat she's wearing her Museum of Science shirt (I LOVE this shirt, it's got pictures of women scientists on it), and I'm twisting her hair all up and putting pencils in like hair sticks. I've also made a sticker label/name tag for her lab coat that says "Dr. Kira /Scientist" on it. She is VERY excited about this costume. She dressed all up in it and was playing scientist tonight, and having a blast. And apparently she has invented a whole lot of things (or at least is claiming that she invented them--hello, Al Gore). Like earrings. I think she may still be a little fuzzy as to what constitutes a scientific discovery and what's, um, crafts. :D And she has also paired with her outfit, high-heeled knee-high black boots. And the boots combined with the power rush of being a major inventor is bringing on some rather dominatrix-ish behavior. So, have fun with THAT tomorrow, first grade!

Mark, after much deliberation (and a VERY generous offering from Ro's husband Bill to let Mark use his harness racing jockey uniform), has decided to go tomorrow as a rock star. He's re-using much of the outfit he wore two Halloweens ago, when he was a zombie rock star. This includes leather pants. (I know you're thinking it, but I really do NOT shop at S&M Kidz R Us. Or Goth Baby. And oh my gosh, I just googled and found that there really is a Baby Goth shop.) And I also made him an earring (clip-on). And he's got a shiny pleather jacket. And he bought himself a little "electric" guitar. (sorry, Ro. I have TOLD him that he is absolutely not to play it at all during class. But I'm betting now that you will have to take it away from him at some point.)

So tomorrow, there will be pictures.

Tomorrow also I will be finishing Kira's dress for Wednesday, which is 60s/70s day. I have the main part of the dress completed, I'm just for some reason stuck on figuring out the instructions for the interfacing. And getting very tempted to skip the whole interfacing and not get bogged down in acting like this is a dress she's going to wear all the time or something. But she's got the go-go dress, another pair of knee-high black boots, I've made her a pair of clip-on yin-yang earrings, she's got the funky sunglasses. Oh, I've still got to make the matching headband.

Mark will be wearing a tie-dye shirt that he already happens to have, and is borrowing this multicolored woven belt-type-thing to tie around his head. Easy peasy.

OK, I just looked at the clock and realized that there is an actual reason why I don't feel I can put together a coherent sentence (or apparently spell it correctly--thank goodness for spellcheck). It's late, I'm exhausted, and I've got a full day tomorrow. Finish dress, register car (which really should have been done in March), Mark's got baseball, I'm behind yet *again* on laundry...yeah. Time for bed. mk