After dinner the other night, we had birthday cake, and then settled into a nice evening of cleaning, calling family, and playing with birthday toys. It had been a great and happy day, and the kids loved my birthday cake because it had icing on it, which happens to be their favorite food. I thought about how big my little girl was and went back to my bathroom to pee. That's where I saw the above.
Where did the scissors come from? My kitchen. How had they gotten to my bathroom? I assume my husband, as he would be the only one who needed scissors. Whose hair was that? Unmistakably Audrey.
"AUDREY! GET IN HERE THIS MINUTE!"
"Oday Mom!"
I knew immediately that I hadn't thought that through. I was not ready to inflict any kind of discipline on the child who walked in, smiling. To my shame, I went with it.
"Is that your hair? Did you cut your hair? That is a No! Ma'am! We do NOT cut our hair!"
"Mommy doe poddy?"
I crouched down, looking directly in my face, trying to hide the rest of me from her line of view. It was not working. Do you know how hard it is to be taken seriously from this position? I steeled myself to continue with my lecture.
"Audrey, this makes me very frustrated. You made a bad choice. You do NOT cut your hair."
"Oday Mommy. Bad shoice. Oday. Scissors for Mommy?"
"Yes, scissors for Mommy. No more scissors and no more haircuts."
"Oday. Mommy all done poddy?"
"Sheesh... yes..."
Now that we were all settled, I washed my hands and took the scissors into the kitchen, where they belonged. I told Aaron who apologized for leaving the scissors in our bathroom. He had trimmed the shower curtain and must have left them there. Audrey was sufficiently contrite, and she had only cut a few choppy bangs, so we moved on.
A little while later while the kids and I were Skyping with my dad, I did a little inspection of Audrey's new 'do.
"Audrey is a big girl, Grampy-doc," I said "She cut her hair today."
"Oh, Audrey did you cut you hair?" he asked.
"No I did!" I could see Sebastian's proud smile on the video feed, standing over my shoulder.
I turned to look at his face. "YOU cut your sister's hair?"
"Yes I did! In your bathroom!"
It all came together. The locked door during their joint nap in my room, the little shrug Audrey gave when she took the blame for a bad choice she hadn't made. And now, my dad was laughing. It was a moment of defeat, and I did not want to repeat my earlier conversation - though admittedly I could take the do-over to be much more effective.
Needless to say, my whole family got a kick out of it. Sebastian got the sense that he probably was going to be in a bit of trouble later on, so he went completely silent when his aunts came on-screen asking about it. I told them "Sebastian cut Audrey's hair today with the green scissors!" and got quite a bit of satisfaction when he yelled "No! Purple scissors!" Good to know I'm still smarter than him.
He has since pulled the scissors out of the drawer to tell me that cutting hair is a bad choice. I've moved the scissors to a far less convenient location, and am watching every closed door, just in case: I never know when another pair of scissors will emerge.
After all of that, I might change my mind about Sebastian and the scissors. I'm kind of loving Audrey's new 'do and might need Sebastian's services myself soon...
No comments:
Post a Comment