Haircut

I'll admit that I don't exactly remember it. But the story has gone down in the family history books. The time that I cut my own hair. I actually don't think that I cut my own. I was probably 3 or 4. My best friend, Amy Lauren, was over at my house playing. We thought that it would be fun to give each other haircuts. I'm told that it wasn't pretty. I'm not sure why there are no pictures to document the occasion.

So, every time that Mary Laine has asked for scissors, I've had a good excuse ready. But when Gary and I reviewed the list of things that ML will be working on in preschool next year and saw "Cutting in a straight line" on the list, I thought that it was time to bite the bullet and let her go ahead and start practicing cutting with scissors. But I had a plan. I would tell her over and over that her scissors were for cutting PAPER and never for cutting HAIR. That Mrs. Tracy (our hairdresser) or Mama or Daddy or another GROWNUP could cut her hair, but that it was NEVER a job for kids. Then I planned to put the scissors way out of reach and only allow her to cut under close supervision. 

I found a preschool Cutting With Scissors activity book. As soon as we got home from the store, I let her sit at the table (away from the curious hands of little brother) and get to work. We decided to do two pages. Both were very simple exercises on cutting in a straight line. She looked so cute as she wrinkled her little nose and stuck her tongue out, trying so hard to get those scissors to cut along the dotted line. And I thought, "I need a picture of that face. I want to remember how big she's getting and how adorable she is when she's concentrating so hard on a new craft." The camera was one room over. I would be gone for just a few seconds as I ran to grab it. And that's the moment that I let my guard down.

When I rounded the corner, Mary Laine had her head buried in her hands. I immediately assumed (silly me) that she was ashamed that she couldn't cut in that straight line. She can tend to be a perfectionist at times. So I looked at the jagged lines on the page, rubbed her back, and encouraged her. And then I saw it. The pile of hair on the floor. 

It is in these moments that parenting becomes difficult. I wanted to smile a little at her reaction to her disobedience, but I had to remain stern. I wanted to snap away with my camera, but I couldn't appear to be glorifying the moment. I gave my best stern voice over my muffled laughs and said her name. And that's all it took. She burst into tears. 

There were no accomplices, Langdon's and Deacon's hair remained intact, and the bangs actually look good (don't ever tell her I said so!). I'd say that we came out relatively unscathed. So, hopefully we can check this off our list and move on to bigger and better things. Did I ever tell you about the time that Amy Lauren and I lit every candle in her house? I better go and hide the lighters!