Piperella

Our littlest man has a new obsession. Cinderella and all things Princessey.

I blame Nonna. She kindly bought a 99p video of Disney's Cinderella from Oxfam to keep the kids entertained on holidays in France. They watched it every morning when Mama and Dada couldn't quite cope with the late nights and early mornings combo. It's a simple story of nasty siblings, horrendous child cruelty and wrong-side-of-the-tracks love story, and the boys were hooked from their very first viewing.

Pip, however, has taken things a little more seriously than Oliver. All the signs were there. He took a shine to Emily's Snow White outfit - dress and shoes - and had to be gingerly coaxed out of it to go home. When we were at Sainsbury's he had a tantrum when Mama wouldn't buy the horrific too large Cinderella outfit. He kept talking about Cinderella's slipper and how he liked her dress when watching the film. I guess it was only a matter of time before the nagging started.

So when he spied the expensive version in M&S, Mama decided Tesco might be a better, and cheaper, bet. We nearly had a melt down when we could only find ages 5-8 but luckily Pip's beady eyesight saw a stack of smaller sizes. The eyes of the check out chick nearly popped out of her head when the lady in the queue asked if the pretty outfit was for "your sisters" and Pip loudly announces that "that's my Snow White dress". That's what you get for shopping in Tescos. Had it been Waitrose there would have been lots of ahhing and apprecative mumurs of him being allowed a 'creative outlet'. That's liberal minded lefties for you.

As I type he is screeching round the kitchen in his dress (complete with black eye from argument with sharp corner on ferry table coming along nicely) with a race car, happy as a kid can be. He will only take off the dress when he sits down to eat. Because it might get dirty.

And now Mama has a perfect bargaining threat. The dress goes if Pip doesn't do what he's told. He loves that dress very much indeed.