Maryn is currently addicted to cutting her own hair. I have discovered her twice in the last 24 hours with a pair of scissors going into her hair and taking out a chunk before I could get the scissors away from her. We have now implemented a scissors moratorium at our house.
I suppose this is a phase, and that I should be grateful. Whitney, the little blond across the street, went through a phase where she was cutting not only her hair but also her eyelashes, claiming that they "were too long and needed a trim." I hope Whitney doesn't give Maryn any ideas. Maryn + a pair of scissors + eyeball = disaster.
Perhaps the hair cutting thing is a necessary rite of childhood. Cora just went through this a couple of months ago. It was an event for which I was totally unprepared. First, because Cora is traditionally very obedient. Second, because Cora is seven and I figured I'd passed the "destroy your hair with scissors" window. Apparently not.
Cora was at school when she was overcome by the overwhelming urge to hack off her hair. She pulled the rounded end craft scissors out of her desk and went at it--putting all of the hair clippings into her desk, and then wrapping them in a sweatshirt that she stashed in her backpack. She took at least four inches off in some places--in other places it was just one or two inches. It was quite a new look, as you might imagine.
The biggest mystery in all of this is how a seven year old girl manages to do something like this to herself without her teacher noticing? We still aren't sure about that. Cora claims that her teacher was at her desk the entire time Cora was executing her covert hair assassination.
Sydney hasn't had her phase yet. I'm hoping that perhaps she has lived vicariously through her sisters and won't feel the urge. But you never know. Maybe she'll skip scissors and head straight for a razor. Maybe I should just head the whole thing off and shave her head now. Now that would be some proactive parenting.
