A HAIRY SITUATION

THEY WEREN’T ALONE FOR LONG ... BUT THEN KIDS ONLY NEED A SMALL AMOUNT OF TIME TO CAUSE BIG TROUBLE

How much trouble can your children cause in three minutes? Three minutes. It’s not long in terms of being an adult, in fact you blink and it’s gone by. But when it comes to kids three minutes is a whole lot of time to get into some serious trouble. Obvious nightmares are drowning, running away and swallowing batteries, then there’s the milder side such as not making it to the toilet in time or the ability to mess up a whole house as soon as it’s clean.

For my cherubs (I use the word loosely) three minutes was all it took for them to render me useless, sobbing on the kitchen floor, wondering how on earth I could go on. OK I might be exaggerating a little bit, but you get the point. We hide the craft scissors in our house, after a small incident last year. They now live somewhere up high, well out of view and are only brought down for supervised use. Earlier this week I did just that, as the kids wanted to make me something before school. I then popped to the loo only to return to two sheepishly smiling kids. I didn’t spot what was wrong straight away, I just knew something was up from the looks on their faces. Then I looked closer and saw my daughter’s hair was pretty much non-existent. Yes, they had gone to town on Miss Four’s beautiful long blonde curly hair, leaving her looking like a dishevelled unloved orphan, or as my friends now tell me – Joe Dirt.

I’m not usually one to care too much about appearances, however seeing her new mullet and shaved-looking scalp really did me in. I cried while I scampered around on my hands and knees trying to pile all the hair together. I cried when I turned around to see her staring at me, confused by my reaction. I cried as I put a hat on her head to leave the house to head for school … and then I had to get over it. It’s only hair. Life goes on and hair grows back, and that’s exactly what Miss Four said to me.

And that’s when I realised, not only how silly and superficial I was being, but that she didn’t care what she looked like, and was genuinely confused why I or anyone else would care what her hair looked like. “It’s OK Mummy, stop crying, it will grow back,” she said. While on the other side of me Master Six was telling me the punishment he would give himself for his role in the incident. “No phone and no tuckshop for me for three weeks, Mum,” he said.

I looked at my children with a new appreciation. Yes they had been naughty (granted I did leave them with scissors) and yes they could have actually cut themselves during the process, but they were kids. Nice, caring children with a good outlook on life, who knew they’d done something wrong and were willing to take the consequences. I can only hope that stays with them and they really do understand they are to never cut anyone’s hair again, or else I could end up with cranky parents knocking on my door …