World Book Day
Another parenting chapter ends
Ahh, World Book Day. The nemesis of many a parent, up and down the land. There are the schools that go all-in for dressing up as book characters. Then the ones who’ve decided that children should bring in decorated potatoes (?!) or craft a scene from a book in a shoebox. And everything in between. No matter that World Book Day was included in the ‘Dates for your diary’ in the school newsletter, and circulated as a letter from school as well, it still somehow comes as a surprise - “Wait, THIS Thursday?!” Let alone the outfit discussions!
In my experience children either have multiple changes of mind for weeks ahead of WBD, and only finally decide (or reluctantly agree) who to be about a day before. And have a change of mind on the actual morning, god help us. Or they are resolute in their decision - “I’m being Spiderman and that’s that”. They don’t care whether Spiderman is a book or not, that’s who they want to be. Of course many, many children hate dressing up and don’t want to do this AT.ALL.
On the parent side of things, WBD has a reputation for being the bane of parents’ lives - and I hate to be stereotypical, families come in all shapes and sizes etc, but let’s be honest, handling the costume tends to fall to mums, doesn’t it (I’m sure there are loads of dads who make fab costumes too). Just another thing to remember this week - another thing to order in time, to make, to not forget, to not fail at.
It would be ideal if WBD fell in a convenient week for the family calendar, and children were happy with their costume ideas and execution, and comfortable with being in a costume full stop. Unfortunately it’s not always (ever) like that!
It’s a bit bittersweet this year, as it’s our last primary school World Book Day. I’m both relieved and a teeny bit nostalgic. Although nostalgia is always through rose-tinted glasses - I’m forgetting the strops and tears over the years about various costumes (and that’s just me, haha!). I always thought that I’d be making fantastic costumes, would really enjoy it, the kids would love the results and the school run would be a delight. Actually it’s more complex than that, isn’t it?
Our eldest is not a fan. Hates being the centre of attention in the fancy dress costume sense, really struggled with being ‘laughed at’ when in costume (‘no one’s laughing at you, when people laugh it’s because everyone is in funny costumes and they think you look great’) and I found it really hard when he got upset and wouldn’t be convinced otherwise. It got better with each year though.
We (…I) did the home-crafted costumes - I still love my Very Hungry Caterpillar creation and cannot pass it on - and also did the ‘normal clothes’ costumes, and the shop-bought costumes. Lots of charity shops, lots of repurposing and more recently lots of Vinted. And yes, emergency Amazon too. No snobbery here about bought costumes - whatever works and the child feels confident in. His happiest costume efforts were a Roman Gladiator costume, sword and shield for Rotten Romans (all hail the mighty Horrible Histories); Percy Jackson - normal clothes that worked with whatever Percy wears on the book cover plus the Roman sword and shield (bonus points for costume reuse); a bought World War army general costume for Frightful First World War (again Horrible Histories - also doubled up for a later World War Two project dress-up day too). Oh yes and George’s Marvellous Medicine - normal clothes with a bottle of a disgusting-looking concoction that he and Daddy mixed up and made a great label for. Anything that makes a not-so-confident child feel good in themselves and plays to their interests works for me.
Our youngest was game for anything when little and all the costumes got a second go, which was great! Brilliant value. More recently she has taken the approach of ‘what do we already have that we can use’ which has been brilliant (apart from those things that would be perfect…but they went to the charity shop months ago). Not so brilliant is her perfectionist streak! But we’ve got there somehow, with much negotiation and a large dose of patience. One of my biggest regrets is that I’ve never managed to get her to dress up as Mary Poppins, but I shouldn’t try to live vicariously through my daughter - I should just dress up as Mary myself (perhaps just on a normal Thursday, why not!)
This year is (miraculously!) the first and only year we’ve done a Harry Potter-based costume, to be Cho Chang, using the Halloween cloak my daughter made in Stitch Club. She’s wearing half her brother’s school uniform and a Ravenclaw house badge hastily printed out and laminated last night. The pièce de résistance, if I may say so myself, is her wand which was a speedy craft, made yesterday evening. No joke - I was stirring the dinner bubbling away on the hob when she popped in “…did you make me a wand mummy?” Um, no, because you haven’t actually asked me to! And in all honesty I’d completely forgotten about it! Aaargh.
So after a bit of faffing round and ruining pencils with the hot glue gun, we dug out a chopstick which was the perfect size and shape, and with some string and an awful lot of hot glue then a good dollop of brown paint and a dash of gold, we made a wand! I’m pretty sure it does real spells too. The good thing is that she’s super happy with it, and that feels good to me too. It does look bloody good, if I may say so myself (ha!!). I shall try it out, next time I need to conjure a Patronus.
Let’s just hope someone can eat with one chopstick, eh?! (who am I kidding, we haven’t used them in years, if ever)
So however much of a hassle and a pain in the backside WBD is, there are definitely ways of making it work for you and your kids. From this vantage point, on the verge of both being in secondary school, I think I might just look back and miss World Book Day a little bit. Especially the school run, with all us frazzled mums just glad to have got it done and seeing all the miniature Mary Poppinses and Willy Wonkas, with their coats on top of their outfits.
#worldbookday #wbd #mumlife #craftmum