HOW I BECAME THE WIZARD OF CLOGS, GINGHAM STYLE.
Martha came home from school and asked if she could put on one of her blue and white gingham summer school dresses. I scratched my head and explained to her that, in this house, we normally put a school dress on BEFORE school as opposed to after school.
"Silly daddy". how wrong I was. Martha wanted the blue summer dress because she wanted to dress up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and play Wizard of Oz after school. OZBVIOUSLY. I dug out one of the summer dresses (which are a lot smaller than they were last summer when she was 4 and a half, and may well not actually fit her properly when summertime eventually rolls around), Martha took off her regular school uniform and activated gingham summer mode, then grabbed a toy dog which was christened Toto. I had to sit downstairs on the sofa (one of my dfavourite parts of Martha's games...until things like street feathers make an appearance), and read the Wizard of Oz book. Martha then magically appeared out of the book, really confused that she was no longer in Kansas, but on our Persian rug in Doncaster via the power of a fictional tornado.
There was one tiny detail that ruined Martha's gameplay. 'Dorothy' had her dog, her pigtails, her blue check dress and confused mental state, but no ruby red slippers from the corpse of a squished wicked witch. I explained to Martha that we didn't HAVE any ruby red slippers in the house, and maybe her LOL doll fluffy slippers with a non-slip grip would do the job instead.
"Dadddddd...that's really silly. They NEED to be ruby red slippers. Dad can you buy me some ruby red slippers now PLEAASSSSEEE?"
"No Martha, I can't because it's teatime and I haven't even started ot make our food yet and, more importantly, we don't have a ruby red slipper shop in town".
"I know what I can do! I will just message mummy and she will buy them for me". She sent a voice message for mum on her tablet clearly stating the situation. "Muuuuuuuum, dad can't get me any ruby red slippers and I need to be Dorothy, so can you please get some on your way home from from work yes thank you OK bye love you".
I then told Martha not to be upset if mum didn't return from work with a pair of brand spanking new, sparkly ruby red slippers, as I didn't think there was a ruby red shoe shop on her route back from work. It was then I heard a 'PLINK'. It was the sound of a penny dropping. We had been crafting a wooden egg (being a non-egg household) into King Charles for a school Easter egg decorating competition where first prize was a non-vegan Easter egg*. Despite the brilliance of our collective effort, I kind of hoped that we wouldn’t win it, as I'd have to add the incident to the ever-growing list of anti-vegan discrimination at school. I was turning into one of THOSE vegans. We were using a large sheet of red felt to make Charles’ coronation cape. I had never made shoes before, but hey, how hard could it be? The answer is not very hard at all.
Martha stood on the red felt and I drew round her feet and made a template to make some kind of slipper cum moccasin cum shoe cum ruby red slipper. After almost an hour ofmore cutting, templating, trying on and stitching, tea was not ready and mum was on her way home, but 'Dorothy' had a pair of ruby red felt slippers that were very pointy, more like an elf shoe or something Noel Fielding would wear than a ruby red slipper that Dorothy pried from a poor flat dead witch, but I think I did really well with the material and time constraints before me. I warded myself six dad points. Martha told me that she could now really become Dorothy, and that she was going to cry some happy tears because I had done exactly what she wanted for her. I also cried a few happy tears because it was 6pm, which meant that it was far too late to make tea, so Martha voice messaged mum to ask her to get chippy tea on her way home. Magic.
*update: we only went and fucking WON the Royal egg decorating contest! Martha’s prize was a huge milk chocolate egg, which was swiftly traded for a 100% vegan friendly Disney Princess colour your own jigsaw kit.
