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| Oliver Twist. The boy actually asked "Should I even HAVE breakfast this morning?" Eeeesshhhhh, ACTORS! |
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TinTin, wondering "What was that?!!".jpg) |
They boys have gotten into the school dress-up days this year. Maybe it's a by-product of having to wear a uniform every day? It was not long ago that for wacky wednesday dress up day The Small One went totally crazy and went to school with one sock a little bit pushed down. Whooaaa there, kiddo!
Today the school is celebrating "World Storytelling Day" and get to bring a special book from home to share and of course they can dress up as a favorite storybook character. They have a 'drop everything and read' bell to ring all day and will spend the day sharing books and reading.
Years past the big guy (aka Hair Boy) has gone as Cat in the Hat and Harry Potter. This year he chose Oliver Twist. Not only is he reading the gigantic novel for literacy but he's been studying up all term for the big primary school production of Oliver Twist where he's playing the part of....Oliver Twist. This was a good excuse to get a jump start on the search for costume bits. Surprisingly, this only meant finding a hat. In very very very atypical Lusaka fashion, we found about 8 hats that could do the trick in the first store we looked in.
The Small One wasted no time in choosing TinTin as his book character. He's actually been dressing up as TinTin for a month and has been going to sleep every night with a different TinTin book on his pillow. He claims to have not liked the movie but I think it's b/c we saw it in 3D. (Yes, even Zambia has 3D movies at the theater. Annoyingly so. We all would prefer 2D. Makes us nauseous).
The kids were so excited about their costumes. It was very sweet. It's especially sweet that they put a lot of energy into researching their 'roles.'
We had to answer such questions as: Does TinTin wear a watch? On which arm? Does Oliver Twist have shoes? Long hair? etc. The Small One was especially concerned, as he always is (and which no one believes. He is so far from the laid back, frat boy that everyone assumes him to be -- his parents included. His act is so convincing that we forget. But I digress). He studied four different books (three we own and one he borrowed), checked pictures on the internet and was remembering different details from the movie. He settled on the TinTin from "TinTin et Le Lac aux Requins." In his 6 year old mind this means: long sleeves with the sleeves NOT pushed up over the elbows, no overcoat, no watch, long pants (as opposed to knickers which is more typical), and DARK pants (as opposed to light which again is more typical), white socks, and brown shoes. Thankfully for me I only needed to figure out the white shirt...he had the rest. As luck would have it, we went to 5 shops that ALWAYS have white shirts -- nearly every school-going boy in Lusaka needs a few for his school uniform --- no white shirts. It's been hot too, so he came up with the solution of just a collar on his long sleeve blue shirt. Brilliant. So I sewed a white collar onto his shirt, helped him with the hair gel in the morning and off he went.
The kids friends came as TinTin (after a very sweet consultation with the Small One -- "it is OK if I dress as TinTin, too?"), Captain Haddock (TinTin's sidekick) and J came as the Rita Skeeter from the Daily Prophet. The kids all looked fantastic. (I missed seeing the parade but I saw the photos of all the costumes and they were awesome! All the TinTins got a cute photo together, very sweet.) I think the primary principal came as Mr. Krup but no one had the nerve to snap their fingers...."Tra-la-laaaaaaaa!"
What would we do without THESE characters in our lives? Twins Capt'n Haddock and TinTin and BigSista as Rita Skeeter (last year she was Beatrice Beauregard...she likes to pick powerful and slightly evil women....) Smart AND beautiful, the whole lot of 'em.
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