The Hairclip

*WARNING* this post contains material of a sensitive (and somewhat painful) nature. If you are easily offended by the shenanigans of childhood, please do not read on. That’ll be all….

For the benefit of those of you who know me, I’ve given the kids entirely different letters in order to maintain some anonymity and afford my lovely girl some sort of dignity since I’m broadcasting her antics across the world wide web.

S and I had finally managed to grab a grown up date night, and we obviously went all out and picked the classiest establishment in town. I’d like to say our caviar and champagne had just arrived but in reality our Nandos medium chicken burgers with piri piri chips and corn on the cob had finally been served- yum. We savoured the first few bites of our long awaited dinner before being rudely interrupted by my phone. Hand poised to kill the annoying duck-quack ringtone; I glanced at the screen and saw it was one of our babysitters. A thousand possible reasons flitted through my head and thinking it was odd because it so rarely happened I answered, silently praying for no puke or poo to be involved. J’s voice was controlled but I detected definite hints of concern as she asked us to ‘please come home’ and it was ‘a bit tricky’ to explain over the phone. I quizzed her for more details but her reluctance spoke volumes and abandoning our food we headed straight for the car. Conversation flowed freely on the 5 minute journey home about the possible scenario we might encounter on arrival; S’s logical theories of sprains and broken bones paled in comparison to my grisly scenes of gore featuring electric shock, slipped knives and boiling kettles. Curse my ridiculous imagination.

Bracing ourselves, we walked through the door and with considerable unease surveyed the situation. Z was still awake and bounded over to me and as I scanned her for clues I noted nothing out of the ordinary- definitely no blood or broken bones. So far, so good. Clocking my bemused and slightly concerned expression she put me out of my misery and blurted out in dramatic fashion. (I quote) ‘Mummy, X has got a hairclip stuck on her fanny.’ Oh. My. Gosh. Relief and nervous hysteria swept over me and I inappropriately giggled my way upstairs to assess the damage. For my American friends reading this I’d like to point out for clarity’s sake that over here in Britain our fanny differs somewhat from your fanny; for those of us still immature enough to find it funny there are sniggers aplenty when an American refers to their bum-bag as a fanny-pack. Having enough sense to pull myself together slightly I stepped into the bedroom, where I found X, legs splayed and with a snappy hairclip clamped onto her nether region like some incessant metal insect. J (our 17 year old babysitter) sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed; suitably traumatised and trying to look everywhere BUT at X. One of those elephant in the room moments, and as a mother certainly not one of my finest. J hurriedly left the room and I further stifled my laughter while simultaneously apologising to X for my epic fail in the empathy department. With one swift and somewhat brutal move I detached the offending article, promptly binning it on the judgement it was no longer fit for purpose as a hairclip. When asked her reasoning behind the whole hilarious debacle, X simply shrugged and told me she ‘wanted to know what it felt like.’ Fair enough to some degree- all kids do it right? S was regularly told as a child that if he played with his thing too much it would fall off. Regular exploration within the realms of some normality I understand. Feeling the need to shove a hairclip where the sun inevitably does not shine is beyond even my comprehension. Top marks for creativity though- the mind boggles.

Then again, whatever is ‘normal’ anyway?!