'€˜Wizard of Oz'€™ plays out at home

My son’s newest favorite movie in the entire world is “The Wizard of Oz.”

I have now watched this movie 1, 247,893 times. However, his baby-sitter insists it’s a much better movie that his previous favorite, “Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang,” which she has memorized backwards, forwards and in various foreign languages.

My little boy is a big fan of musicals.

Because his new favorite movie has occupied such an important space in his life, my son has decided that for Halloween he needed to dress up as a character from the movie. To that end, he also decided the entire family needed to dress as individuals from the film in the interest of being realistic.

He had dibs on the Cowardly Lion. I had known that almost immediately, since he typically goes around growling ferociously and saying, “Look! I’m a lion” for days after he has seen the movie. It makes a great conversation starter at the commissary when he threatens to bite the cashier.

I knew there were other characters our family could pull off. I thought, with my longish brown locks and hopefully girlish sweet looks, that I could easily pass for Dorothy in his childish, forgiving eyes.

Nope.

Baby sister is Dorothy, he announced. He also thinks she needs a real dog for Toto, but not even I am brave enough to spring that welcome home gift on my canine-reluctant husband.

So, I admit I then had hopes of possibly being the fun-loving and engaging Scarecrow. I had a vision in my head of holding an adoringly sweet and cooing Dorothy, a Cowardly Lion clutching my hand as I, adorned as the beloved Scarecrow made immortal by Roy Bolger, walked around trick-or-treating.

My son then informed me his baby-sitter was the Scarecrow.

He told me I was the witch.

Even then, I had hopes. I recalled Glinda as being softly beautiful and envisioned myself dressed in a flowing gown of shiny, soft pastels with sparkles set about my garment. I saw in my mind a gorgeous tiara encircling my head and the jewel-encrusted magic wand I would wave about.

“Mommy, you’re the green witch,” my son earnestly explained, dashing all my hopes and dreams with his lilting voice. “You know, the wicked one who gets mean and wet.”

My son thinks Dorothy defeats the witch in the movie by giving her a bath, something he equates with torture in his small mind. Apparently, since mommy gives baths regularly to certain little boys, he now thinks mommy belongs in the role of wicked witch.

Aren’t kids just the cutest little darn things?

So, I thought we were complete with our little group. eBay had costumes in all our sizes for all the characters my son requisitioned, and they have subsequently all arrived at our house in various shapes and forms over the last week. I knew that we were lacking a Tin Woodsman, but I held off mentioning that to my son because we were pretty much out of volunteers who cared at that juncture.

My son knew who the Tin Woodsman was, however. There was never a doubt in his mind. When my husband called from Iraq on Wednesday afternoon, I handed the phone to our 3-year-old so he could talk to his daddy. After his initial greeting, my son told his daddy that he was going to be the Cowardly Lion, his sister was Dorothy, mommy the mean, green witch and Daddy was the Tin Woodsman.

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, and I heard my husband try to explain that he wasn’t going to able to make it home for Halloween. My son nodded at this and then told his daddy he needed to dress up in Iraq and go trick-or-treating there as the Tin Woodsman when he went to work.

In my son’s mind, this meant that we had all the characters covered. He had known from the beginning that his daddy was going to be the Tin Woodsman, even if he wasn’t here in person. Our son is convinced we will all be dressed up together now, even if his father isn’t physically present. My son’s 3-year-old mind decided how his father was going to celebrate Halloween with us this year, and he is content.

His father is bewildered by the turn of events, but willing to go along with it.

I am still trying to imagine how my beloved husband is going to explain to his comrades in arms why he is dressed in aluminum foil with a silver funnel on his head on Oct. 31. If I have to dye my skin green and put a hideous nose on my face, you can darn well bet he’s going to have to wallow in some humiliation as well.

And then the mean, green wicked witch is going to make everyone take a bath.

Tiffany Horvath is the mother of two and the stepmother of one. Her husband, Drew, is deployed to Iraq. She writes every Sunday abut life at home for the wife of a deployed soldier.