Celebrity

I suited up in my yellow felt jumpsuit, crammed Elijah into his monkey gear and put on Curious George on the TV as inspiration. I applied my giant yellow hat and headed out to the car for our big pre school Halloween party. As I put the car into gear, I realized I had no idea where Eli’s school actually was.

After a series of concentric circles, we stumbled upon the school. The parking lot was filled with uncostumed parents dragging various Darth Vaders and Princesses and Spider Men towards the door. My felt jumpsuit suddenly felt very, very warm. A dude in an SUV gave me the “thumbs up” as he drove past and I remembered why I was there. For the boy.

We walked into the activity room in the YMCA basement and felt 30 pairs of eyes fall upon us. It suddenly dawned on me. For the under five set, Curious George and The Man In The Yellow Hat are massive celebrities. Bigger than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and the rest of the People Magazine Top 10 combined.

The kids, and strangely the adults, began shouting, “George! George! Man In The Yellow Hat!" Cameras flashed. A little girl in a Tigger costume ran over and yanked hard enough at my costume that I instantly regretted not wearing sweat pants under the yellow felt.

Eli’s eyes got as big as saucers and moaned, “I wanna go home…” Celebrity did not sit well with him at all. The only way I could convince him to stay was pouring apple juice down his throat. But we spent a good part of the beginning of the party in the darkened room adjacent to the party.

Eli eventually warmed up to the idea of celebrity and we’d do a circle around the tables and refill his juice glass. He would mildly wave at his adoring fans as I acted as body guard.

At the point I was fairly sure the next glass of juice would result in vomit, I packed him up and headed home. I allowed him the forbidden request of watching another episode of Curious George before he went to sleep. Celebrities don’t have to follow rules