The Haircut

Jill wanted to do crafts last Friday morning. She has been reliable with the scissors (I thought!) for about six months, so I got her set up in the dining room and sat in the living room to read to Peter.

About 5 minutes later I heard a delighted voice, "My hair was distracting me so I cut it with my craft scissors!" In my head I screamed, "Nooooo!" and rushed to put Peter down and assess the damage.

She cut A LOT of hair! She hacked off about four inches from the right hand side of her head and then cut randomly from the back and top. Hair was all over the floor, stuck to her flannel pajamas, and coming out in chunks as I ran my fingers through it. I freaked out. I know it's just hair, but it felt like pieces of her little self were strewn about the room.

I said mournfully, "Oh, Jill, no! What did you do?" She looked at my shocked face and immediately started sobbing. I started brushing through her hair to get all the loose pieces free. The hair that wasn't stuck to my fleece jacket filled about a third of a gallon zip lock bag.

My mom came over to offer moral support and then later in the afternoon I took Jill to my hair dresser to see what she could do to blend it. Jill usually gets her haircut at a kids' place called Snip-itz but I feared that she would end up with an ultra short bob all around if we went there.

Monica (my hairdresser) did an awesome job creating layers and side swept bangs that hid the damage. Luckily Jill had a lot of hair to start with so even after her hack job there was some left with which to work. We joked that Jill was going to have the most fabulous hair in her preschool and her classmates would be coming into the salon to request "The Jill."

I don't want to neglect Peter in this post just because the little rascal isn't giving himself haircuts yet. Peter is such a character at 18 months. He seems very socially mature to me. Wherever we go he says to people, "Hi. How you doin'?" It's "How you doin'?" all day. He's like a little Joey Tribiani.

After seeing us toast a few weeks ago, Peter yells, "Cheers!" when we give him a sippie. And he also remembers and says people's names after hearing them only once. He talks about his friends Shannon and Lyla all the time.

Peter is saying some four to six word sentences like, "I want to see the squirrel." He twirls on the spot to dance and sings most of the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. When he sees any letters he says, "I want J-I-L-L!" And Bryan just told me at the grocery store tonight Peter grabbed the pen at the credit card swiper and because he wanted to write he said, "I want to do J-I-L-L!" The kid is sharp!