The Peaceful Forest

Where a tiger and a rabbit stay in harmony.. or as much harmony as siblings can stay anyway :).

That is S's idea of a smile for the camera, not a growl because of the tiger costume ;). This was for a fancy dress "party" at their school. They have one every year at this time - and are very particular that it is a party and not a competition - so no pressure on the kids to perform and they can just have fun!

The tiger costume is what I made for D last year - had kept it because it was my first fancy dress effort :) and it came in useful. After last year's party, while D tried to start a discussion of what she would be next year:
D: Hmm so what animal can I be next year?
Me: You don't need to be an animal darling, you can be anything you want to be!
D: Ok, so let me see..
Me: (Quickly realizing the options this could throw up) No no let's do animals !! And please make it an animal without any stripes or dots or designs!
D: Cat, Dog, and so on and so forth
Me: Rabbit - that's one easy to make and you can have some pink (pink was/is her favourite color).
D: Yes ok - Rabbit!

And the memories of children (For things they want to hold on to of course ;)) are so amazing that every few weeks she would think about the fancy dress, ask me when the next one was and remember that she was going to be a rabbit. So last week, I finally made the rabbit costume. The ears were a bit tricky because of the size, but with a hairband, a couple of twigs pasted on the back to hold it up stiffly, we managed to make them stand up decently.

After this years fancy dress, conversation as follows:
D: S can be a rabbit next year, you can use this same dress!
Me: Well, maybe the poor guy deserves his own costume next year.
D: What shall I be?
Me: You won't be at this school baby. You'll be at a big school next year and won't have a fancy dress party like this one.
D: I don't want to go to big school!!

She's in a montessori school and will be finishing this year, so will have to go to a bigger place for her 1st standard. Keeping fingers crossed that school admission works out like we're hoping it to.