Mother of the Year Hatches a Plan

I had a brilliant idea, that of acquiring puppets for the two youngest kids. A perfect Christmas present, I thought, since they are at that adorable make-believe age in which a puppet can quickly become one of your closest friends. So, onto Amazon.com I go in search of puppet perfection. I found a T-Rex for Jake whose name, inexplicably, is Sniffles “because, due to his short forearms, he can’t wipe his nose.”

O-Kay. For Claire I chose a rooster. To this very day I cannot explain to you my reasoning except that the very thought of my baby with a rooster on her hand, making it talk, pleased me.


I was not content, however, to simply acquire the rooster puppet. I thought that the perfect coup de grace would be to dress the rooster in a get-up like Claire wears around the house on a daily basis. Her current favourite, one that has been near and dear to her heart for months now is a pink tutu. So, I thought that a pink tutu and maybe some false eyelashes would set off the rooster ensemble like nobody’s business.


Yeah, you probably figured it out before I did. That night I was trying in vain to achive slumber and I thought that it just wasn’t enough to have the rooster wearing a tutu and false eyelashes and that what this fancy foul really needed was a jaunty hat, perhaps with a feather boa for the finishing touch. As I was considering the rooster’s attire, I thought about how I never saw roosters dressed up on the Muppet Show, although I saw plenty of fancy chickens.


THAT was when it hit me.


I had inadvertantly dressed Claire’s rooster in drag. I didn’t know where to go from here. Do I now dress Sniffles in an overtly masculine costume to compensate? Do I put that poor dinosaur in work boots and chino’s?

We had reconciled ourselves years ago that, realistically, our children’s “college fund” could be more aptly named, “the Therapy Fund” as we are certain to inflict some sort of emotional toll on their psyches, but where exactly does “my mom dressed my rooster puppet in drag” fit in the DSM-IV?