There are some things in life which I swear are created solely to make mothers feel inadequate and useless, and World Book Day falls squarely into that category in my opinion. Along with spots and stripes day for Children in Need. Pyjama days – now THOSE I can cope with it, although we should perhaps gloss over the fact that I managed to send the kids to school in their school uniform for that as well last term, because I was a week out in my planning. Still, could have been worse, I could have been a week out in the other direction, right?
So World Book Day has been a complete disaster. My eldest point blank refused to contemplate dressing up because it was ‘stupid’. In vain I tried to come up with people for him to dress up as – the Demon Dentist? Wimpy Kid? Horrid Henry? Charlie from the Chocolate Factory? No – none of these fitted the bill. Then finally – ever the creature of habit – at bedtime yesterday he said ‘fine, I’ll go as James and the Giant Peach again’ – except I foolishly didn’t keep last year’s Giant Peach and we had nothing big enough to magic one up.
‘Right’ says he.’This is my LAST WORD on the subject – I’ll be Timmy.’
‘Timmy…which Timmy?’
‘Timmy from the Famous Five, of course!’
Well, if I can’t magic up a giant peach at 8pm at night, I sure as hell can’t magic up a flipping doggy costume…after much more discussion we finally settled upon Dennis the Menace – I am not sure if comic characters count for World Book Day but frankly I’ll take what I can get on this one, so Dennis the Menace it was. Except this morning he said he was too cold to wear shorts – can’t blame him, really. So he basically went to school in his school uniform with a red and black top that he grew out of 2 years ago. World Book Day Epic Fail Number One.
My daughter views World Book Day completely differently – she practically inhales any book she can get her hands on. The whole process of choosing a costume was much more fun, and over the week we’ve we discussed the relative merits of Amelia Jane, A Little Princess, Anne from the Famous Five, any of the Colour Fairies or Rainbow Fairies, as well as what I’d call traditional Fairy Tale characters but what she calls Disney Princesses…we’d finally settled on the Worst Witch. Yay! A fun costume that she was excited about, that I could manage easily, AND that I could take a picture of for all those totally-not-competitive-at-all pre 9am Facebook posts…and then we received a text from school to say that because of their trip to Cardiff Castle, my daughter’s year would need to wear school uniform after all…World Book Day Epic Fail Number Two.
Thankfully, my youngest is still in nursery, so I didn’t have to worry about a costume for him….though he would have been the easiest of the lot, given that we have a dressing up box full of superhero outfits, all of which he loves, and will wear at the slightest excuse. So imagine his distress (and my shame) when we rocked up to the Nursery entrance – to find it chock full of superheros. FFS. World Book Day Epic Fail Number Three.
Don’t know about you lot, but I’m glad the whole shebang is done with for another year!
As you can see there really isn’t much hope for me in the motherhood skillz arena. But if you think I’m a (slightly) better blogger than a mother, please feel free to nominate me in the MAD Blog Awards ‘Best New Blogger’ category – just click on the pretty pic below….THANK YOU!
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Completely with you on this one! Just another reason to make me feel inadequate. My twins went as Jeremy Clarkson and Ryan Giggs from the 2013 annuals that they still read. Not exactly book characters but the best I could manage, and they were happy.
Good for you, and them!
LearnerMother recently posted…City of Zombies Board Game – Giveaway
Your young son may ask to dress as a centipede next year. Work starts now!
Have nominated.
Gaaaah that’s two legs a week!
Thank you for your nomination! x
LearnerMother recently posted…World Book Day Epic Fail
Pips school made the slightly odd decision to celebrate St David’s Day today, not far off being a week late and on the day when everyone else is celebrating World Book Day, so she had to wear red – I managed to dig out red tights, a red cardigan and red hair bands, only to arrive at nursery to find several of the girls were wearing elaborate traditional Welsh outfits. Never mind!
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That’s a bit random – I wonder why they didn’t just do it on Monday? Hardings on Cowbridge Road usually sells Welsh outfits in March if Pip wants to do the whole kit and caboodle next year!
LearnerMother recently posted…City of Zombies Board Game – Giveaway
Ha ha! The school week and morning routine is hard enough. Adding dressing up into the equation makes the potential for disaster so much more likely. As long as we have enough notice I do quite like these events though, mostly as a break from the usual. But it usually involves finding an existing costume and inventing a tenuous, literary connection. I remember the midwife telling me through tears, sinking hormones and bleeding nipples (mine, not hers) that being a good mother is more than achieving successful breastfeeding for your baby. The same applies to Fancy Dress Occasions.
Your midwife sounds like a very wise lady and I shall remember her words for next time…that is for the next costume event obvs, have NO intention of needing to dust off the nipple shields ever again! Ha! x
LearnerMother recently posted…World Book Day Epic Fail
I love World Book Day in a lot of ways (and also blogged about it this week), but I totally see you point about the dressing up bit. Our son’s only 10 months old, but I’m thinking that maybe we should start thinking about costume ideas now.
Jonathan recently posted…Happy World Book Day!
awww oh dear. world book day was a bit of a disappointment with us too because my son got ill and had to miss school so he didnt get to go in his costume. it would have been his first year dressing up for it. oh well!!
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I never enjoyed world book day. With all my lot it was always very expensive and we usually ended up throwing half thought out costumes together the night before.
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Brilliant! This is the first year our school has ‘done’ WBD so I was quite excited about it really but generally I detest dress up days at school and I absolutely refuse to buy something special. #blogclub
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I saw this while ago, but haven’t had a chance to comment! My dear I haven’t laughed so much in ages whilst reading this. Exquisite post, I say!!! I feel for you, sometimes just isn’t the right day. You definitely made right day for me. Does that help?x
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