Tomorrow is Storybook Day at school where the kids can dress up as their favorite character, and my 10yo wants to go as Harry Potter. Easy enough, said I. We found one of Dad’s white dress shirts in his closet and a wrapped Asian-style jacket that passes muster for “dress robes.” All we needed was a necktie with stripes, and we’d be good to go!

D’oh – I didn’t remember how to tie a necktie! I’ve done it several years ago but must have purged the details from my brain somewhere between having children and grad school. So, I googled it and found a step-by-step video. I could swear that I followed the instructions to a tee and even had the tie on myself, but to no avail.

Thankfully, my awesome stepdad came to the rescue, not only providing a great tie that we could borrow but he also pre-tied it and kept it loose for easy transfer! Kudos to Granddad!

I’ll try to remember to take a picture of handsome lil’ Harry Potter in the morning before he catches the bus.

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Update March 5:

Ta-da! There’s our finished dress-up project. I think he turned out quite dashing! Little brothers No. 2 & No. 3 decided this morning that they, too, wanted to dress up for Storybook Day, so we improvised on the fly and came up with Mr. Brown (from Dr. Seuss) and the cartoon boy from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. “Mr. Brown” borrowed one of Dad’s brown Army t-shirts and wore a pair of brown pants. The “Wimpy Kid” wore a plain white shirt and dark pants … he’ll have to explain that one, b/c it’s hard to double as a cartoon drawing! At any rate, they had fun.