Tobelsa, Letting Gender Confusion Go

So, my son can be defined as a typical boy. Dirty, whiny, running on some kind of nuclear battery that never ends, and adorable. He's also, if you want to put a name to it, on the autism spectrum. This is a HUGE spectrum, from people who are socially awkward (Yeah, thats a thing) to people who are violent and incapable of functioning without major assistance. My boy is a realm unto himself, as are all autistic children. I worked as a special ed admit for a few years and am familiar with the children who are slotted into the 'special' category and lemme tell ya, he is something else all together.

Aside from the obvious differences between my son and other children, there is one thing I didn't think to plan for when picking out baby booties at Babies R Us. My son is completely innocent. Seriously. He contains no negative emotions whatsoever. No anger, or hatred, or spite and, the important part to this particular post, no shame. He is just as quick to grab a swatch of fabric and toss it over his shoulders as a cape as he is to slip on my hoop-skirts and trot around proclaiming he's a Princess. This is not 'gender confusion' its honestly the pure and untainted desire to play pretend, without any kind of filter or consequences.

Its rather unnerving to me, since I never before thought I was traditional minded when it came to gender roles.

And now we reach the meat of the blogpost. There is a slim chance that my family might be able to go to Disney again this year. When I asked my boy what he wanted to be for Halloween at Disney, he smiled up at me and said "I wanna be Elsa!!"

Oh boy.

Some awesome, cool, mild-mannered parents are able to let thier child go into public dressed as they pleased. If a boy wants to wear a skirt? SURE! If a girl wants to dress like a Prince? Why not? These parents are amazing, and I dearly wish I could be one of them. But Im not.

I live in fear that my son's oblivious innocence will be crushed under the cruel boot of insensitive children. Or worse, that they will tease and be mean and he wont know why they are doing so. I can't even imagine what I would do if I saw this happening, I mean, he wouldn't understand cruelty like that. I am a mama bear when it comes to my boy.

You would be surprised at how introspective I got from a simple costume!!!

After contemplating the casual cruelty of children, my own horror stories from grade school, and everything I know from personal experience and stories of my friends, I made an executive decision. I was going to make a genderswapped Elsa.

Duh Holly. Geez. How obvious! I mean, best sides of both worlds, without encroaching on the whole, gender confusion thing! Ive decided to let that decision tree go until he's a little older. lol. So, off to the Google to see how other people pull the Genderswapped Elsa.

mabychan.tumbler.com

by Crazy-FanGirl27,

Hoo boy. Thats it. All I need, right there. (Click images to go to where I got them from, if they are yours and you dont want me to use them, please say and I will remove them immediately. :D) 

Obviously, my five year old will not be sporting man-cleavage, and the honkin, BEAUTIFUL pectoral will be sadly lacking in his portrayal. Loving the colors, white, pale blue instead of Elsa's teals, and the cape... the second image has something like what I looking at.... 

Pattern (Cuz I gotsta have me a pattern.) 

Mccalls 5214

Now, wait, don't knock it till you try it. The costumes on Frozen are all pretty well mid 1800. Coats and tails, heavily tailored kind of things. They cut high in the front, military decoration and all that. But, I was thinking about Elsa's parents. 

Her fathers rockin' the tunic looking thing. 

So Im gonna do as I do and damn the rest of it. :D

Anyway, heres the plan. The poufy sleeves are going to be a gauzy, sheer fabric with an embellishment of sparklies on it. 

The tunic is a icey tealish blue taffeta, much like my Ariel Dinner Dress, 

lastly, the cloak will be this netting, it is silver and looks like icey frost. 

Im splicing the pattern look, the artwork, Elsa's dad, and Jareth the goblin king together to try and create a male Elsa with the same snowy umph but not so much the snowflake frill. 

The cloak Im going to hand drape. I keep seeing a design in my head of one should pleated heavily with bulk, and the other shoulder having just a scrap hanging on, with drapery in the back a la bitchy Roman dudes.