Batman is just a state of mind

I accompanied my son to school this morning, since it was Halloween. Every year, the kids are encouraged to come in costume and have a little parade in front of their peers, and my job was to help him change out of his costume afterwards.

(And no, I'm not going to comment on the Alito nomination, other than to say that here's a guy who clearly has "TOOL OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT" tattooed on his forehead. Go read The Rude Pundit's take if you're starved for political wrestling)

So, anyway, where was I? ... oh, yeah, the costume.

Anyway, for some reason, my son wasn't interested in getting a costume this year. He made some half-hearted comments about dressing up as Darth Vader, but his heart clearly wasn't in it -- partially because the Vader costume requires wearing a mask, but (I suspect) largely because he doesn't have a clue who Darth Vader is. He eventually decided to simply wear his Batman costume from a year before, which pleased my wife, since she didn't have to spend $20 for a costume that'd get worn for one day.

Only problem here is that my son's too big for his costume, having grown too much in the past year. Not that this stopped him -- with the kind of reasoning that makes sense to a five-year-old, he simply put on the cape from the old costume (sans mask) and declared that he was Batman, in that stern this-discussion-is-over way kids have.

And as if that wasn't weird enough, my wife -- worried that he'd be outclassed by all the kids parading around in full regala -- dug out a plastic Viking Helmet (courtesy of the Excalibur hotel and casino) and plopped it on his head.

So that's my son for Halloween 2005: a five-year-old kid wearing a black cape and a Viking helmet, proudly marching off to school as a home-brewed version of Viking Batman, a.k.a.Bjorn Wayne. I'd throw up a picture, but I think the silliness of the outfit works better when it's left to the imagination...

What makes it even sillier (if that's even possible) is that he's got no idea of what a Viking is, and gets rather testy if you call him one.

But he had fun, and that's the important thing. If nothing else, it certainly made him stand out from the sea of pre-fabricated Vaders and Zombies and brightly-colored ninjas out there...