Crazy Hair

 Crazy Hair Day.  It's part of Red Ribbon Week, the week that the elementary school introduces my innocent, naive children to drugs, drug overdoses and the possibility of dying of a drug overdose and having your eyes roll back in your head.  (Yes, that is an image from last year that still haunts Ari.) No trauma so far this year, but I still wish that my kids didn't know so much about drugs, courtesy of the public school system.  Believe me, we're not cooking meth at our house, and most of our neighbors aren't either.  And if they are, they're not just giving it away to my kids.  They're selling it for a profit to people with money. a.k.a., not third graders.

Oh, sorry, did I get off on a tangent?  Anyway, Ari has been telling me for days that Crazy Hair Day is the most important day of the year.  I've heard her talk about it with her friends, planning out their elaborate 'do's, giddy with anticipation.  Ari has proclaimed to me numerous times that "THIS IS GOING TO BE THE BEST CRAZY HAIR DAY EVER!"  (She usually talks in all caps.)

So did I help her plan?  Did I buy supplies?  Did I get excited along with her?  No.  The big morning rolled around and Ari had nothing.  We are not hair people.  We don't have hair stuff. A brush, maybe.  I tried to convince her to stick a bunch of elastics in her mane, but her plans were far more grandiose.  That's how we ended up at Bowman's early this morning, Ari with thirty bucks worth of fancy hair supplies in her arms and me armed with some common sense and a dash of realism.  We ended up with a can of magenta hair spray and a can of glitter hair spray.  For under three dollars, Ari was back to her giddy self.  Phew!  To get even more for our money, I suggested she take the hairspray to school in case anyone forgot about Crazy Hair day.  She told me that hairspray isn't allowed at school.  Oh, but the school is going to make sure the kids know all about drugs.

ANYWAY, we saturated Ari's hair with magenta, then with glitter, and she loved it!  I have to say, it was the most benign, well-behaved "crazy" hair I've ever seen, but it was beautiful.  I think Ari should always have magenta, glittery hair.  It matches her soul.

Xanthe reluctantly allowed us to do her hair too, cringing and shouting, "They said we didn't have to do crazy hair!  What if it doesn't work?  What if it doesn't come out?"  She loved it.  Xanthe's hair is magic, though.  No matter what we do to it, it reverts back to the Asian Bob.  It will probably look completely normal by the time she gets home.

Freestone didn't do crazy hair because the 4th grade was also doing crazy hat day.  Oh my gosh, people, could we please slow down on the special events?!  When you have hair day AND hat day on the same day, during a week when each day is a different dress-up day for Red Ribbon Week AND it's Halloween, you really need to ask yourselves if it's overkill, and I'm not talking drug overdoses.  Geez, I sound angry.  I'm not.  Maybe I should get some of that purple hair spray.  I bet it would be difficult to feel hostile about school if I had glamorous, glowing, glittery hair like Ari.  Even the alliteration is alleviating my angst.