The Batman Costume / Das Batmankostüm

Nikolas first wanted to be a bird for Halloween. "A blue bird," he said, "so I can fly high in the sky." Just as I had wrapped my head around creating a bird costume and how I might console him when he couldn't fly even if he was wearing a bird costume, Nikolas changed his mind.

"I want to be Spiderman!" he declared. Nikolas has had a thing for Spiderman for a long time. All he knows of Spiderman is the opening song from the old cartoon which you can view on Youtube. He's never seen a Spiderman movie or an actual episode of Spiderman. But, he thinks Spiderman is pretty cool.

A quick mental inventory of what little we have in our apartment for costume creation, and I knew Spidey was beyond me. "I don't think I can make you a Spiderman costume," I said. "I think that's a costume you would have to buy and you can't buy it here."

Nikolas contemplated that for a moment. "Ok," he said. "Can you make me be Batman?"

There is a Batman related toy running on the morning commercials these days. I can't even tell you what the toy is, but the boys in the commercial are big and cool and seem to be having a lot of fun, which is Nikolas' entire knowledge of Batman.

"Ok," I said. "I can do Batman."

We looked Batman up on the internet for inspiration and a Batman insignia to copy. Nikolas liked the look of what he saw in the photos, especially the cape. We set to work on the cape first, as there just happened to be an old cut-up navy blue sheet in one of our closets when we arrived. Nikolas cut up scraps, while I cut out a cape. And then we set to work painting, me painting the insignia on white fabric with Nikolas painting on paper.

It was good fun and we made good progress. And then after a while, Nikolas looked at me and asked, "Mommy, what does Batman do?"

Even if Nikolas doesn't know who Batman is, he'll be a pretty cute Batman come Friday. In the photo, he is racing off, "To the rescue!"