Two words...

which appear to be rather innocent on their own, but put together they strike fear into the hearts of many a mum, me being one of them - BOOK WEEK!!!

Now there are probably thousands of mums out there that think, no probs we'll just go to the dress up closest and pull out something appropriate but for some reason dress ups arent a big thing around here. Samuel and Alex arent fussed and heaven forbid I put some sort of fairy costume on madam, it would end up black in 5 minutes flat I swear.

Last year wasnt a problem. Good old Aunty Helen gave Samuel a Harry Potter costume and after a quick lightning blot addition with a makeup pencil we had a pretty good Harry Potter. However according to the rule (which were made up on the spot by a certain 6 year old), you cant go as the same thing twice *sigh*

OK so this has been at the back of my mind for about 3 weeks now and it would seem that just like back in my days of English Lit essays, procrastination is my friend. For some unknown reason it hit my last night - The Very Hungry Caterpillar!!! Its a classic tale and a green tracksuit with a red hood should fit the bill, no problems.

If is a very sad fact of life that green tracksuits dont come with red hoods. Its also a sad fact of life that behaviour of two children will decrease in direct proportion to the increased urgency of the errand you are undertaking. Such is life. Fortunately the green tracksuit situation was easily fixed, although tracking one down proved a little harder.

I managed to find a tracksuit top at Big W. Given that its the tale end of winter, it was being thrown out for $5. So as you can imagine I wasnt going to argue when it rang up at the cash register for $3 BONUS!!!

Kmart yielded nothing in the bottoms department but Target had some albeit in sizes 14 and 16. Still that was all we had to work with and at another bargain price (this time $6.88 down from $15.99) I figured we'd just chop them up.

So green tracksuit safely bought (plus 2 pairs of shoes and a bonus free handbag - yes it was my lucky day, then again something had to make up for the two little devils I had with me), a trip to Spotlight got me some cheap red fleece for the hood, blue and black felt for the antennae and feet and some milliners elastic to create that chubby caterpillar look.

Ottobre 1/2004 pattern 14 had the perfect hood pattern which was quickly traced off, cut out and attached. The antennae have been cut out, stuffed and are waiting to be attached and I'm currently running the elastic through at intervals in order to create the caterpillar bands. Then its onto the feet and then the pants. Slap on a bit of red face paint Wednesday morning and I reckon we'll have a fairly passable Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Its coming together so quickly and easily that I'm very much afraid something is going to go wrong, probably something along the lines of "I dont want to be a caterpillar" on Wednesday morning (I did make sure he was ok with the caterpillar idea but 6 year old minds are subject to change without warning).

Look forward to providing the first dress rehearsal once Mr 6 is home from school.