When we were kids, around four or five, my younger brother insisted on wearing a Spiderman costume everywhere he went. When Mum dragged us around the supermarket, he stomped around complaining in his spidey get up. At Mass Mum would be scolding him for laughing and he’d be sitting there in his spider web leggings and top combo and matching spidey balaclava-style headgear. She had to wrestle with him to make him don anything else. I am still haunted by the arguing, screaming, bargaining and bribery that went on the morning of his First Holy Communion to get him to wear a proper suit.
My youngest son is similarly obsessed with a Thomas the Tank Engine jumper I bought him. I rue the day I purchased that particular item of clothing for 70% off its original price. Even with the saving, it wasn’t worth the hassle.
I suppose I should have foreseen problems by his reaction when I showed it to him in the shop. He grabbed it from my hands and hugged it like his very life depended on he and that jumper being together forever. By the time we reached the tills he and the jumper were almost as one. The shop assistant had to reach over the counter with her zapper gun to reach the price tag while I reassured him that she was not trying to steal away his now most favourite thing in the whole wide world.
No he didn’t want a bag. Yes, of course he wanted to wear it now. No he wouldn’t take it off so that the girl could remove the safety tag. Yes he would agree to being lifted and hovered over the security tag taker-offer thing, just so long as he and the jumper were not parted for even a mili-second.
The boy wore the jumper home with pride.
He wore the jumper while he ate his dinner that evening. Yes, he is over three and has been eating independently for years but despite his vast experience in these matters he failed to successfully deposit entire forkfuls of spaghetti bolognaise into his mouth. His Thomas jumper was now slightly more colourful than when first purchased.
When bedtime rolled around the boy refused to take the jumper off. He argued that the garment could easily double up as a pyjama top.
We argued. He screamed. He won.
He fell asleep with his arms wrapped so tightly around his body (and his jumper) that it was impossible to remove it without waking him and thus setting in motion a terrible chain of events which would result in him keeping me awake all night wailing ‘Why?!!!’ WHY??!!!’ WHAAYYYEEE!?!’ etc etc.
The next day was a Saturday so thankfully we didn’t have the ordeal of having to force him to wear his nursery school uniform.
By midday hardened cornflakes, which had strayed from his breakfast spoon, joined the spaghetti stains. I broached the subject of washing the jumper and enquired if he could bear to be parted from it for even a 30-minute express wash. The running and the screaming insinuated that, no, that scenario would not stand.
By afternoon paint, butter and marker ink had joined the myriad of colourful and now pungent stains. We took him to visit someone and, despite the intense heat of their house and his desperation to show off his new jumper, we managed to keep his jacket zipped up to the chin, at least giving the illusion that we were relatively clean human beings.
The next day a new life form had formed on the jumper – a strange hybrid of butter, cornflake, bolognaise sauce and purple marker. I swear it spoke. It said ‘Please wash me’.
So I wrestled the boy to the ground, and I removed that jumper and stuck it in the machine. I tried to explain over the wailing that it was for his own good as he stood there screaming at the washing machine, his head moving in motion with the spin cycle. He wailed for the duration of the afternoon while it dried on the heater, screamed while I ironed the thing.
He’s wearing it now and will be until someone invents either an anti-screaming serum or super-industrial Finn-proof earplugs.
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