She's been asking to watch Batman, and we found an animated series called "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" that isn't too dark and goes easy on the heavier themes; it's almost campy, actually, and frankly it's just a really weird show. Lots of bizarre new characters, completely absurd storylines (even for a comic book superhero), etc.
In any case, it's enough to sate her appetite for Batman, and she now likes to pretend to be him. We've had numerous discussions about why Batman does the things he does. That is to say, he hits people. A lot. But they're all bad guys; Batman only hits bad guys, and he only does it to keep them from hurting people. And after he bonks them, he takes them to jail so they won't hurt anyone else.
Here she is, decked out in some Batman gear that she collected herself. Note the especially threatening strawberry hat that serves as her cowl.
I don't claim to be an especially great or brilliant dad or anything, but I did pull off some good stuff with this superhero thing, completely unassisted by the likes of Pinterest. She first wanted to pretend to be Spiderman, and so I made her a "Spiderman mask" our of that foam rubber paper stuff and some elastic string. Easy enough. But then she requested a web slinger.
After some quick thinking, I cut a length of the elastic string, tied it to her wrist, and balled up the rest in her hand. Then she could throw the clump of strong and pretend that it's Spiderman's web. She dug it.
The Spiderman thing didn't last long, though, and suddenly she was all about the Batman. Naturally, she wanted a Batman mask to go with the Spiderman mask, and I complied. But she wanted an accessory to go with her Batman persona, and so I made...a grappling hook! Well, it's a small foam cutout of a Batman insignia tied to elastic string, which is around her wrist, but it worked pretty well. Varsity dad stuff, that.
Since I started putting this post together (read: gotten around to writing it and uploading the video), Essie has become completely enamored of the movie "Epic". And I didn't realize until a few days later, but of all the characters, she most strongly associated with Ronin, the heroic leader of the Leafmen. Not the young teenage girl protagtonist, nor the Queen (voiced by Beyonce). I'm not sure what that says about her and/or about women in film--really, I'm not being coy, I have no thoughts--but it's noteworthy and interesting.
Oh, and Ronin shoots a bow and arrow, so I had to make one of those for her, too. (Sans arrows, of course.)
Now you're thinking like a Leafman,
Seth