Cowboy Cal

A couple of months ago, Cal started his Cowboy phase.  I can’t really explain what triggered it, but it does seem that Cowboy Keith’s visit to “school” a few weeks ago has kept it alive.  Apparently, Cowboy Keith was really tall, and he dressed in a big cowboy hat, a vest, a pair of jeans and big boots.  And he put on a good show for the kids, juggling and roping things.

When Cal shows an interest in something creative, fun or just good for him, I do whatever I can within my means to help encourage and further it.  One of the cool things about Cal is that he really doesn’t need anything fancy.  When he said he wanted to be a cowboy, we went with what we had: for his hat, we pulled out one of my grandpa’s fedoras that I’ve had since the late 90’s; for his vest, I found an orange, plaid button-down in the bin of boys’ clothes my sister had given me for Cal to use, and he immediately asked me, “is that my vest?” to which I responded, “it is!”; and for his boots, Cal chose to make his Lightning McQueen “Francescos” shoes (complete with lights in the soles) his official boots. Together, this has become Cal’s cowboy outfit.

We really did it up on Day 1.  He spent a little time riding his rocking horse “Roscoe,” and then hopped off to eat some beans for lunch because “that’s what cowboys eat” (up until that point, Cal didn’t eat beans). And for his nap that day, Cal insisted he sleep with his hat on and his boots on because “cowboys sleep with their boots on to protect them from snake bites.”

Cal has spent many days since that day in his cowboy outfit, at school, at home and even at parties.  We did add another “vest” (a pastel, plaid button-down shirt we found at Old Navy) to his wardrobe to take some pressure off of me and our washing machine to keep his orange “vest” clean. Given a choice, he’ll pick the orange “vest” every time.

Just last week, Cal drew a portrait of Cowboy Cal.  Here it is, with a real picture of him beneath it to show how spot-on he was: