Green Hat, Yellow Hat

I walked Luke to an aisle at the back of the fabric store. Surrounding us were bolts of brightly colored fabric in neat rows and columns nearly to the ceiling. I spun him around to face the wall of felts.

"This is Robin Hood Hat fabric."

My son's old green play hat, which has served us well on adventures from Neverland to Sherwood Forest has grown too small and today we were questing for a replacement. This one was to be a Robin Hood hat.

Two Robin Hood hats, actually.

"A yellow one and green one and the yellow one has to have a red feather and the green one has to have a white feather because Robin Hood wears a yellow hat in the beginning of the movie and a green one at the end and..."

There is long river of explanation attached to the hats and it's been on repeat since Saturday when Luke announced his wish for new headwear.

Now he fell absolutely silent for maybe five seconds while he faced the wall of fabric. At the end of that period, he had pointed a shrewd plump little finger at a green bolt close at hand. I tugged it out of the shelf and had a look. Forest green, embedded with silver glitter, nice and thick.

"A wise choice." I nodded my approval.

Luke grasped the bolt to his chest. "It sparkles."

"Yes, it does."

The bolt was nearly two feet taller than Luke and at least as big around. I offered to carry it but he politely refused. He's a big boy.

"The yellows are down this way, kiddo."

He hauled the big green bolt down to the other end of the row to examine the yellows. This was clearly a harder decision. I tugged free a few corners of yellow fabric for him to feel.

[Privately, a voice inside me wondered whether or not Robin Hood actually wore a yellow hat. Perhaps we should research. Perhaps brown would be more appropriate. And privately, I told the voice to shut the hell up. This is Luke's hat.]

Luke meanwhile was still exploring the yellows. He kept returning to the same bolt.

"Do you like that one?"

"Well, they don't sparkle," he said quietly.

"Oh, we can make it sparkle."

"We can?"

"Totally. We can make anything sparkle."

Luke thrust the yellow bolt into my arms and then went racing down the aisle hauling the goliath forest green bolt with him and shoving back into the shelf with his whole body.

"Whoa, kiddo, what are you doing?"

He ran back to me and grabbed a bright neon electric green bolt off the shelf and hugged it to his chest.

"We can make it sparkle," he said knowingly.

"Yes, we can. Okay we're done here. Let's go get the sparkles."

"And the feathers."

"Yes.”

"A red one and a white one."

"Yes."

"A red one for the yellow hat and the white one is for the green hat because in the movie Robin Hood wears a yellow hat in the beginning and a green one at the end and..."