This post also appeared on My Big Jesus!

The other night, while the kids were taking their bath, I decided to give J’s and EK’s hair a little trim, mostly to make sure their bangs didn’t get into their eyes. They have endearingly shaggy cuts, and so I’d never want to jeopardize that. We had had some friends lingering after our dinner together, so after bath time, we fast-forwarded the bedtime routine, so we could get back to chatting with our friends. I was VERY surprised that EK didn’t make her way back up the stairs, as is her usual custom when we have friends over. (She likes to rejoin the party.) Their bedtime was a little late, so I attributed her absence to tiredness.

Around 11:00, when everyone had gone home and Hubby and I were getting ready for bed, I felt like I should go check once more and see if they were nestled in their beds. When Hubby and I got to the hallway where the kids’ rooms are, I saw EK’s light on underneath her door. When we got inside, we immediately saw little pieces of paper and ribbon from various bows that had all been cut into tiny pieces.

(I’ll take a moment to clarify that we don’t allow scissors without supervision. I’ll also clarify that I happened to leave those bangs-trimming scissors to dry on the bathroom counter, but up against the backsplash, and out of sight.)

Finding EK on the far side of her bed, working on a ribbon on her nightgown, I asked, “What are you doing, babe?” She looked up at me, and replied, “Just cutting stuff.” At this, I started to the see hair on the floor. I took the scissors and said, “Well you know that it’s not okay for you to use scissors without me or Daddy with you. And look at all the hair you’ve cut off!”

As she started to cry (mostly from being in trouble, I think), I looked at Hubby and said quietly, “That’s a lot of hair…” Turning back to a sniffling EK, I said, “You really cut a lot of hair. How do you think it looks?” And as the dam broke and she crumbled into a hot mess, she cried, “Great!” and succumbed to the sobbing. As tears filled my eyes, I told her the most important thing I could think to tell her: “If you think you look great, then so do I.”

You see, she’s not yet four years old. She is outwardly tough, but can be fragile in many ways. She is moldable, flexible, and absorbs every single thing she sees and hears. If I had dared tell her it didn’t look good, or that she did an awful job on her hair, well, it would’ve crushed her. It likely would’ve stuck out in her mind for a long while. Instead, the focus of the scold was on scissor safety and not the outcome of a self-done haircut. After all, it’ll grow. And it looks right cute with a headband in it. She’s still my adorable EK, and her hair just has a little extra spunk.