Wicked Mom

Whoopsey daisey, I think I royally screwed up this time.

Remember how I posted awhile back on how Dawson likes to be scared?

Well, its still completely true. He LOVES spooky, dark, downright evil things... that is, until bedtime rolls around and all the mental images of the Abominable Snowman, the spooky houses that light up in the Halloween display at Target, and the Incredible Hulk all come to visit when the lights go out (along with a "buzzing sound in my head" he SWEARS he hears every night... wtf?).

So, when we went to Disneyland we hit a McDonalds drive thru on the way home, and the happy meal prize (which is always a TRUE treasure to our kids who don't get them very often) were these FREAKY Madame Alexander dolls themed Wizard of Oz (they look a lot nicer here then they actually are in the hands of an innocent child, OH, and side note, dont you LOVE how to be 'p.c.' they made the munchkin the same size as the rest of the gang, ha).


Since then, Dawson has been obsessed with asking me about the story, and I have tossed him bits and pieces of the toned down storyline that I can remember for weeks now trying to satisfy his curiosity without encouraging his wild little imagination to invite a new demon to lurk in his bedroom at night.

But no. No, no, no, this will absolutely NOT do, he wants to know EVERYTHING about the wicked witch. "Why is she mean? Why is she green? Why is she chasing Dorothy and her friends? Why does she want the shoes!?!?" (Oh, its ok, honey, she only wants them because after the devistating tornado that took Dorothy far away from her family and made her lost without hope aside from the path that leads nowhere, her house landed on the evil witche's sister and KILLED her... off to bed, now...).

Part of me doesnt really want to spend my kid's entire childhood sheltering them from their surroundings (and culture too, I might add). In my humble opinion, there is by far much more of a redeeming quality to the Wizard of Oz than there is to Batman video games, and I appreciate his curiosity and don't want to quench it. But the other part of me realizes that there is a time and a place, and as his Mom it is my job to direct his curiosity carefully so that he doesnt learn more than he needs to before his time (and cause him in turn to throw rotting apples and sick his fleet of flying monkeys at the other kids on the play ground).

Ahh. Whats a wicked mother to do.

In saying that, I don't remember my exact age (but I do believe it was before kindergarden) I, too had a fascination with The Wizard of Oz. And the wicked witch scared me stupid. The apple trees... well, lets just say I dont eat apple pie to this very day. And dont even get me started on those damn monkeys. But... I still loved it, and recall begging and pleading for a rewind at the end of the vhs every time it was over.

So, like I said... little by little, I've been telling him the story line.

And then... having recently discovered the wonder of Google images, today he asks to see her picture. When he sees her, and Dorothy holding Toto, he begs me to cackle "Ill get you my pretty.... and your little dog, too!!" (Its his favorite part, and I have to admit, I kiiiind of like saying it).

Then, I get this brilliant idea... YOUTUBE!! I'll bet youtube has a movie clip of just that one little part in the movie... without the flying monkeys and hostile apple orchird... and he would LOVE it.

Welp... thats where it all hit the fan.

I had a hard time finding the clip of just the piece I was looking for ("I'lllllll getchyou my prettyyyyy!!...").

BUT, I did find this clip titled "The Wizard of Oz uncut trailer," and figured it might play back a vague story line of the movie that would be at Dawson's level.

It starts innocently enough... and Im reading along with the words out loud as they pop up on the screen... Oh, geeze. You'll just have to watch this one for yourself, and tell me if you think were screwed out of a month's worth of decent sleep. Pretend your 3 years old when youre watching it.