The end of an era

I knew the day would come eventually. My little boy is growing up and is ready to part with his many superhero costumes.  We made a pile of costumes to pass on to cousins in AZ or friends in the neighborhood.

As this stage of life ends, here's a walk through the past . . .

From the time our little guy could run around, he improvised costumes and pretended to be a superhero. We bought him a pair of Superman pjs when he was two, and he never wanted to take them off!
 
So for Halloween we bought his first real costume - Spiderman. It had super cool muscles built right in.

For years he wore the Spidey costume almost every day, to do every possible activity, including going to the store and to playdates.  We did draw the line on wearing it to church.

After three years of continual wear, the costume was a little short (can you say wedgie?), was almost worn through in the rear,  and had a few rips.  Within a few months of this picture the Spidey costume found its way to the garbage can.

When we realized that superhero costumes were Joseph's passions, we started buying costumes on clearance after Halloween.  We amassed a fun collection.

Joseph didn't limit himself to only superhero costumes. He combined pieces to make all sorts of creative inventions.  Below, Ninja warrior.
 
 And his Pirates of the Caribbean costume.

 And some sort of Indiana Jones/Chinese guy/pirate.

And I have no idea what this is.

All his buddies loved to come over and dress up. They would run around the house for hours playing elaborate superhero games.
 

When he couldn't wear a costume he wore the next best thing . . . his Superman shirt. Dan bought it at Goodwill and Joseph wore it for at least two years. It had a cape which attached at the shoulders with velcro.  For the entire 3 year old year of preschool he wore a superman cape to school almost every single day. And on vacation. In this picture we were in Williamsburg, Virginia and he was pretending to be "Super Colonial Boy".

Dressing up with cousins is the best!  Here he is with Lauryn (Kara and Dave's daughter)

and with Carson (Rich and Lindsey's son).

These pictures are from Halloween when he was 4 and 5 years old, but he didn't limit his costume wearing to the month of October. It was a year round activity . . .

. . . until it wasn't. The other day we were thinning things out of his room and I realized that the pile of costumes hadn't been touched in many months. I asked him if he still wanted to keep them and he shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm really more into Legos and dart guns now.  And football and soccer and basketball and wall ball and sky ball."

I knew it couldn't last forever. Eventually kids grow up and find new interests. But I thoroughly enjoyed this superhero costume dress-up stage with my Joseph. And I'll miss it.