Mady cuts her own hair...the before and after.

Oh. My. Gosh.  It happened.  My child cut her own hair.  Honestly, I'm still in shock and every time I look at her I just think "I can't believe you did that"!  I just never thought Mady would do something like this, and at 5 years old?!  But, what do you do?  I think it was mostly just that this girl's hair does not grow very fast...it's taken all 5 years to pretty much get to where it was before.  But, as I was reminded last night by both York and my mom...it's just hair.  If this is my biggest problem, I'm a lucky girl.

I'm not quite to the point where I can "laugh about it" but just recalling my reaction from last night and how the whole thing went down, I've come to the conclusion that this was the culmination of the complete chaos that has been my life as of lately.  I remember thinking in the past that my kids would never do such a thing, mostly because they wouldn't let me out of their sight.  They wouldn't go up to the playroom, or down to the basement by themselves, I always had to be there.  But, in the last little while, Mady and Sophie have been much more independent together (is that an oxymoron?) and they will go up to their rooms to play together, and lots of times, Jack will follow right behind them.  This has been lovely for me, I can usually clean up a meal immediately following, or get a load of laundry folded.  Along with this, however, also comes the chance that they will do something crazy under no parental supervision...i.e. cut their my little ponies hair, and then their own.  SO.  I guess I'm lucky that this is the first time something crazy has happened.  (Although, I would like to add, I don't think my kids are Tasmanian devil terrors, so I never have worried about it too much, I suppose this is a good wake up call that they still are 5, 3, and 1.

This particular night Sophie and I had just gotten back from a birthday party (which I will post pics of later) and I was getting ready to put Jack to bed.  Sophie had come home with her new, very own, rainbow build-a-bear  bear and they had rushed up to play with it.  I went it and told them to get their jammies on and brush their teeth while I put Jack to bed.  Maybe 10 minutes later, I walk into Mady's room and she says "look mom, I'm cutting my hair!"  I literally started screaming "OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH!",  and Mady's saying, "What mom?  Don't worry, I didn't cut myself!".  I can't even describe the look on their faces while I was freaking out.  I honestly had no idea how to react, what to think, or what to say.  I just kept saying "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT!"  "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" to which she responded "Because I wanted short hair like Sophie" (meanwhile Sophie just kept repeating "but I didn't cut MY hair mom!).

These are the 1st two pictures I took...

And then I needed some moral support, so I send York this text (he's in Vegas)...

And luckily he saved the night by calling me immediately upon reading the "I'm freaking out" part.  I was crying and saying, "I don't know what to do, should I be mad at her, should I not?" And he told me not to be mad, kids do this, it's no big deal, etc. etc.  SO, that conversation totally calmed me down and after we hung up, we sent him the picture of the damage.  I read Mady what he said after seeing it and her face lit up.  She said, "Daddy loves it?" and then I started bawling again, for a totally different reason.  It hit me that I could have made her feel like she wasn't pretty?  I possibly made her feel bad about the way she looked?  Oh my, the water works turned on (and hello, the 8 month hormones aren't helping anything either).  I would NEVER want any of my kids to think that looks are important or should play any factor in their own self worth.  From that point on, I just kept reassuring her that it's no big deal (except that she's grounded from scissors for a long long time!) and nothing she could ever do would make not love her or think she was beautiful.  That it doesn't matter what you look like, the fact that she is an amazing, kind, and thoughtful girl are what's most important.  I mean, this was getting deep, and it was one of those moments when I realized parenting is hard...how do you really ever know the right thing to say or do?  

At this point, it was way past her bedtime, so after making her promise that she would never do this again, I assured her that we would get it fixed in the morning (because she did say to me...I didn't mean to cut it THIS short, I only meant to cut it medium!).  She then says "do you want me just to fix it, I could cut the long part in the back off too"...OH MY GOSH CHILD, did you learn nothing from this experience!?!?!  *Sigh*

After my conversation with York, we are taking these pictures to send daddy.

 So, this morning I text the girl that does my hair, Ashlie, and asked if there was any chance she could squeeze Mady in today.  (Normally we just go to this kiddie place to get their hair trimmed/bangs cut but A. I didn't trust them with this, and B.  Mady loves that place...she gets balloons and suckers at the end and I did not want her to feel like she was being rewarded).  This was at 10am and by 10:15 she responded sure, if I could get her there by 10:45.  Luckily the kids were all dressed and ready and I just threw them all in the car.  Ashlie seriously saved the day, and I think the end result turned out pretty cute!

Mady's new do!

Anyways, it's over.  Now that I think about it I'm a little surprised that it affected me as much as it did.   I'm sure I overreacted, but I guess the only way to know how you'd react is to have it happen to you...WHICH I hope it never does:)