***Part 1 ***

What was wrong with this picture? 

One morning, while standing in my kitchen and talking on the phone with my girlfriend, I just knew something wasn’t right! I kept glancing out the window suspiciously towards the sound of singing. 

There was my five-year-old, happily playing on her swing set in the back yard. 

Something wasn’t right with the scene I observed, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

          You see, it’s usually the absence of noise that signals childhood mischief, but I could see her clearly and she was simply swinging. Wait a minute… that’s it! 

I could see her but not clearly because of the distance between us.  I asked my girlfriend to hold on a second, momentarily placing the phone on the counter.  Leaning out the back door, I called for my daughter to come into the house.  Hopping off of the swing, she happily made her way toward the back door, where I stood waiting.

 As she drew near, my eyes became riveted to her forehead, where her bangs had once been.  My baby gave herself a reverse mohawk! I saw what looked like a small monk!  She had somehow sheared off all of the hair on her forehead! 

In mortified shock I grabbed the phone up and cried to my friend, “You have to come over and look at my baby girl’s hair”! 

Hanging up the phone, I attempted to calmly ask my child what happened… note that I said attempted.  She looked concerned at my anger and said, pointedly, “My hair was in my eyes, so I got out your sewing scissors and cut it off.“

  I was in tears by the time my girlfriend walked in and I turned to her for comfort in my hour of need.  All I got from her was a long round of hysterical laughter.  Point in fact, she laughed for a good bit, to my dismay.

“How can you laugh” I cried… “It’s not funny!”

As she tried to contain her laughter (not very well, I might add), my friend said, “I know this seems awful, but her hair will grow back.  Look, kids do things like this.  I’m sorry for laughing, but I can’t help it!  Its hilarious, really it is!  I’m sure you will look back on this and laugh, someday.  In fact, you can laugh at anything my kids do to me when it happens.  I will even call you first.”

After my girlfriend left, I had to hunt down all the evidence to be found.  Underneath my own bed, I retrieved my scissors… along with a massive pile of hair!  There was a lot more contributions of hair than I had anticipated, which was rather alarming!  My thoughts momentarily raced to my other children, but then quickly moved on to one or more of the family pets in the house. 

When I asked whose hair I’d found, she confidently took me to her toy pony, sittling in the corner of our family room.  The poor jumpy horse had received an army style crew cut, and was never the same after that, the poor thing.   

Of course, my girlfriend was right! I did look back and laugh. 

And if you are wondering, I did have the occasion to take her up on that offer.  Several years later, I did get my chance to laugh at her child’s silly antics. 

That, however, is another story…