Follow the yellow brick road

Today is the book week parade at school, and the Dancing Queen has (nervously) skipped out the door with her new sparkly red shoes as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. We thought the choice of character appropriate on a number of different levels, not least of which is the fact that she has watched the movie at least a dozen times over the past week - which makes a nice change from Care Bears for starters. 

The other obvious point is the fact that Dorothy has all sorts of adventures in a magical land where she befriends various people/creatures along the way. For a child that has created an alternative reality (in a world we cannot reach) where she takes care of her 'shadow' family, again it seemed fitting.

The need for Dorothy to follow the Yellow Brick Road also managed to bring back memories which now bring a wry smile to my face.  At one point in time, one of the most challenging outings we could undertake (and only undertaken if absolutely necessary) was to a nearby shopping centre where the connecting pathways between the shops were tiled with geometric pavers in various colours/patterns.  The Dancing Queen would only walk on certain colours and if anyone had the audacity to get in the way of her walking in a completely straight line along one particular colour, then we had a problem.  Sometimes it would take us 20 to 30 minutes to walk to our destination at the other end of the mall and more often than not by the time we got there we were in meltdown mode. The other reason why this particular destination was so nightmarish from our point of view was that it had way too many exit points.  Meltdowns would often be followed by the dire need to escape, with the Dancing Queen attempting to make a mad dash out of the first available portal.  In most other shopping centres I had learnt to make it to 5 minutes before panicking wildly.  But with this one, the panic set in almost instantaneously.  We now live in a place with very few shopping malls.

Today however I told her that if she gets nervous, she could always click her red sparkle shoes and say "there is no place like home" and just imagine she is back somewhere safe.