Cut it out

One thing we're especially careful with around here is keeping the scissors away from tiny hands.

We have no less than twenty pairs of scissors in the house, and all of them are kept in a glass in the topmost cupboard above the stove.

I know what you're thinking - another example of helicopter parenting gone too far. You are so wrong. 


I'm not worried about our lot hurting themselves. I'm worried they'll cut things they're not supposed to - like books, curtains, clothes or cords. 


You know: my stuff.

Tracey, on the other hand, is worried they'll cut hair.

"You've had a haircut," I said to a colleague's five year old daughter today as she followed her mum into the office. I was grinning a bit because it was a crowd stopper.

"Hmmm," said her mum, frowning. Words momentarily failing her as she surveyed the damage. Obviously my colleague, Sarah, had tried to patch things up: there was judicious use of bows and ties. "She did it herself," she added unnecessarily.

Turns out while mum was having a haircut last night, the little miss got hold of scissors and gave herself a trim. She took chunks out of the sides and back, and got rid of the front altogether.

Which Sarah tells me merely means she's hitting the same milestones as her mother.

"When I was a kid I was having my hair cut for a wedding," she explained, "and I kept telling the hairdresser to cut my fringe. She'd trim it and I'd yell, Shorter! Shorter! until my fringe was nothing but stubble."

You might not be surprised to learn this was not the look she (nor her mother when she returned to the hairdressers) was going for.

Seems the young Sarah didn't want a short fringe - she actually wanted no fringe, but didn't realize the way to achieve this was to grow her fringe out, not to have it removed.

That's okay, I wouldn't know that either.

But I am sure of two things. Firstly, like her daughter this afternoon, no amount of accessorizing was going to help hide what she'd done to herself. And secondly, she's now going to start hiding the scissors.

I suggest shoving them in a glass way above the stove.

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