The unkindest cut

The Princess, in her infinite wisdom, cut her hair while I was away overnight last week. She was making playdough and got some in her hair and this seemed to her the most practical way to deal with the problem. Essentially, she cut out a large clump of hair on one side of her head. I nearly cried when I saw her. “Your beautiful hair,” I said in exact imitation of my mother. “My sister is a boy now,” said Michael gloomily. We went to the hairdresser to get it all chopped off. He tsked and gave her a mullet. Her hair grows so slowly that she could be a teenager before it looks respectable again.

I spoke to her on the phone while I was away and she told me a tale of woe about how school was awful. The others had told her that she was to look for them while they hid and while she was counting they went and told the principal that she had pushed someone and she was punished. The principal and even the school secretary (who is lovely) had been very cross with her. Then, the authorities had found out that the others were lying and she was pardoned. I was very saddened by this glum little story and, the following morning, took her into school myself to get to the bottom of it. After dropping her off, I went for a word with the principal. He was astounded. The whole tale was utter fantasy. “In fact,” he said, “she is a very good child and has never been in any trouble at all.” What, internet, are we to make of this?

Finally, I discovered that in the Princess’s school, they make their first communions in their school uniforms. While this is something of which I heartily approve in theory, in practice, I find myself a little disconsolate. In theory, obviously, it stops ludicrously over the top expenditure and helps to focus the children’s (and indeed their parents’) minds on what is a very important religious event rather than an opportunity for dressing small girls as brides to be. In practice, I find that I had been somewhat looking forward to dressing my small girl as a bride to be (don’t mock the afflicted). One of the other parents said that some parents get dresses for their daughters for after the event. Even I can see that that is daft and my husband thinks that its completely ridiculous but yet, I am tempted. It’s two years away (oh stop sniggering in the corner) and perhaps herself will, once she has a thorough grasp on transubstantiation, have views on the appropriate dress code.