Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

It's one of those things that every kid does at one time, but we all secretly hope our children never will. I had hoped my turn would never come, but but my number was up yesterday. I was getting ready to walk out the door for a Relief Society presidency meeting when I noticed the telltale signs. The bathroom light was on. Emily was upstairs alone. And it all went downhill from there. As I ran upstairs, Emily came into full view - scissors in hand.

I only noticed a few strands of hair on her shirt. Not so bad. Until I looked in the drawer and saw a pile of silky blond hair. The majority had been taken out of the front and side of her hair. I could have just kept it up in a ponytail until it grew out, but I didn't want to mess around with it, so I decided to make a fresh start.





Should I have told Emily that all princesses have beautiful long hair and that she couldn't be a princess since she cut her hair? Maybe not. But I did. Because with Emily it doesn't work to gently reinforce principles and because she's running out of hair to cut.

That's one more rite of passage down. We've already covered several calls to poison control, ripping wallpaper off her walls, picking up baby sister by the head, writing on baby sister's face and cutting holes in a brand new pair of pants. We've still got a broken bone, stitches, getting lost at an amusement park and eating a bug to go. For now I'm going to pretend those things won't happen. Because right now my ability to ignore the inevitable is the only thing stopping me from purchasing a large cage and shutting Emily in until she goes to kindergarten.