You would think by now that I would have seen it coming. I fondly refer to it as ‘hairmegeddon’ which is possibly a bit over-dramatic but I don’t care. It is photo day at school. The day when your little cherubs have a lovely photo of their cheeky faces and you want them to look vaguely like they are well looked after and smart.
Now, I have to say that my daughter always starts the day off looking neat and tidy but often comes out of school looking like (to coin one of my gran’s favourite expressions) she has come through a hedge backwards. What exactly happens during a normal day at primary school?
Clothing and general cleanliness work well for me, that I can do. Hair is more of a problem. I mean, I can brush it, I can pop it into a plait and a pony tail, but that is about my limit. I was secretly hoping that by now, my daughter might have been inspired by YouTube videos to try doing her own hair dos.
Apparently not. YouTube is currently a place for watching Roblox videos. Hair is my job.
It is all good until a special day comes along. Parties, days out or photo days. It is the school photo day that strikes fear to my very core. And what is worse is that I only have myself to blame. I blogged many years ago about the problem with girl hair and in desperation, I bought a book with 100 different hairstyles. This was my biggest mistake.
My daughter loved this book. Pages and pages of different styles to suit different types and lengths of hair. This is all lovely except that many of these styles are out of my league when it comes to hair styling. Way out of my league.
However, my daughter digs the book out every year, the night before photo day. We don’t even have time to practise. And every year, I wonder why I didn’t hide the book until she was old and able enough to do her own hair. Or at the least, remember to find the book a couple of weeks before photo day and give myself time to practise (let’s face it, I will never be that organised!)
This year was no exception. The eve of photo day and she was scurrying around looking for the book. Her hair is quite long now and I find even the basics a challenge. So, imagine the thrill of discovering that she had chosen a Dutch side braid no less. Even the instructions confused me.
The first attempt was a disaster. Not something that I would want to capture for eternity on a school photo.
The second attempt just went wrong.
A Dutch braid, it turns out, is a tricky one. Instead of passing the strands of hair over the top, you plait them under each other. I struggled a lot. The third attempt wasn’t perfect but it did look okay in the end.
As I was watching her go into school, I was admiring my handiwork when one of the other mothers pointed out that I had put in all of that hard work and you couldn’t really see it from the front anyway. Looking at her again, I realised that she was right. From the front, she looked the same as she does every day when she is wearing her usual pony tail or plait.
Why do I bother??
At least she was happy and the school photo is really lovely. Maybe in years to come, I will look back at the photo and smile at the memory of the pre-photo stress and the joy of managing to achieve a style that was a bit different. In the meantime, I will be finding some nice YouTube videos to show my daughter. Maybe next year, she will be able to do her own photo day hair?
Oh dear! Well at least she was happy, even if you can’t see it on the photo! If you’d remembered that ‘minor’ detail, you could have sent her into school with attempt number one.
Fingers crossed she gives it a go herself soon. Surely they reach an age where it is ’embarrassing’ for their mums to do their hair?!
Sarah MumofThree World recently posted…Worrying about Cedric the guinea pig
I must admit I do not miss those days of doing Katie’s hair, as apart from a pony tail I was rubbish at anything else. I think you’ve done well there x
Tracey Williams recently posted…Our October holiday to Sani Asterias in Greece