So Lilly has been a Lion for about 2 months now. Let me be specific, she's been.... Kiara (pronounced kee-ar-ah) for 2 months ever since she saw The Lion King II (Simba's Pride). Her first day of pre-school I asked her if she made any friends or met anyone new. She said she roared at everybody. So I'm guessing she didn't win any new compatriots that day. Then a few weeks pass and she's still going strong with the Kiara business. She usually plays in the sibling care room while I'm at my ECFE class with Lucy on Fridays. Since her teachers walk her down the hall from pre-school to the play room I usually poke my head in to make sure all is well in playland. The kind aid says to me, "ummm, is her name Kiara?". I look sternly at Lilly who is currently slicing into her wooden carrot with her wooden knife in the play kitchen while wearing a tiara and I think a scarf and mittens. I assure the bright eyed girl "no, no her name is Lilly. Lillian actually, but she's been Kiara for a few weeks now." The girl giggles and says "oh GOOD, because I didn't have any Kiara's on my list!"
So anyway - the point is, she's infatuated with this character and we're all trying to ride it out and not care to much in worry that it'll just make it last longer. Michael (I mean SIMBA!) plays along well, but I'm kinda ticked he gets to be Simba and I only get to be "Mommy Lion".
Nonetheless when Halloween started to approach she was having trouble deciding what she wanted to be. First it was, "somebody who takes care of people, because that's what I do!" Then briefly it was a doctor and finally one day I said, as she was crawling around the floor and roaring at the cat, "Hey! Why don't you be a Lion Lilly?" To which she responded, "I'm not Lilly I'm Kiara! and I'm already a lion RAWWWWR!"
Whatever... I went to Target and looked for something like a lion costume. No luck. They wanted $40 for some piece of cheese costume that's held together with cheap velcro and a couple of strings. I went to Old Navy and they had some nice warm looking Lions but they were only infant size.
I'm nothing if not resourceful, so next time we were at Target we picked out some clearance rack brown boy (shhh don't tell KIARA!) sweatpants and sweatshirt. I stopped at the fabric store and got some different color brown felt and some fur type material.
Here's the final product.... RAWWWWR!
Lucy says, "Seriously dude.... enough with the roaring already."