Just Take a Couple Inches Off the Back

As I combed Brooklyn's hair this morning, I noticed that it seemed shorter. The more I looked at it, the more I realized it was a lot shorter. All her curls in the back were gone. I asked the kids, "Did you one of you guys give Brooklyn a haircut?" They all insisted they had not.

"Seriously, one of you guys gave her a trim. Who's lying to me?" I demanded, getting angrier that not only had someone cut my baby's curls, but that someone was lying to me about it. I stared at Lexi and Clayton, looking for some sign that they were lying to me. Duh! I'll just ask Brooklyn who cut her hair! "Who gave you a haircut, Brooklyn?"

"Claypunk did it."

I gave Clay the evil eye.

"Ok, I cut her hair, but just a little bit."

Ha! A good 5 inches were taken off the back! I'm so sad because her curls are gone and apparently Clay did this yesterday and threw the hair in the garbage which has since been dumped. I can't even put the little curls in an envelope to save so I can look at them one day and say, "Hmmm, here's some hair. I wonder why I saved it. I wonder which kid this was from."

A little later, I took Lexi to get a haircut. She'd decided that she wanted it trimmed and I thought it would be a good idea to take her today. You know, break up the day; get out of the house; distract the kids from fighting with each other for a few minutes. So we walk into the shop and Jackson says he wants a haircut too. Jackson just got a haircut less than a week ago! He insisted that he didn't get enough cut and wanted it shorter. Oh yes, I'd love to pay for another haircut because you can't make up your mind.

So we checked in and sat down to wait our turn. Brooklyn saw a container of suckers on the counter and made a bee line for them.

"I want one!" came her wail as she stood on her tip toes trying to reach the suckers.

"Be a good girl and you can have one after Lexi gets her hair cut," was my calm, matter-of-fact answer. However, all anyone heard was, "Be a good girl..." before my words were cut off by screaming of epic proportions. Brooklyn threw herself down on the floor and continued to cry as if someone was kicking her. Yep, that's a perfectly normal, justified reaction, don't you think?

A couple of young adults looked on in horror. A couple of gentleman looked on in horror. I looked on and wondered if there's a boarding school for temperamental 2 year olds somewhere in the world because I'm willing to sell my house and live in a cardboard box in order to afford such a place for her.

I picked her limp, screaming little body off the floor while trying to pin her arms and legs. I dodged her flailing limbs as I attempted to sit down without being kicked in the face. Meanwhile, Clay is walking around the desk and giving me a challenging look; a look that says he's going to push the envelope until I lose it. I'm thinking - it's no big deal that he's walking around the shop. He's just walking around. He isn't getting in anyone's way. No big deal. Lexi has other ideas though. She takes off after Clay to try to get him to sit down. This makes him squeal and take off in a makeshift game of tag. Ugh.

I catch Clay's arm and pull him over by me. The problem is - I had to let go of Brooklyn in order to get Clay. So, Brooklyn runs back over to the suckers and screams even louder, frustrated that they're just out of her reach. I walk back over to the counter, grab Brooklyn. Again. And try to distract her by saying, "Is that Papa?!" while looking out the window into the parking lot. It worked for 4/10ths of a second at which point she yelled, "That's not my Papa!" and started crying even louder. Now, if my other kids had teased her like that, I would've yelled at them. "Don't tease her! You're just making things worse!" But there I was, telling her that her Papa was outside. I didn't have time to dwell on my inequitable rules as Clay was jumping up and knocking baseball caps off a rack high on the wall. I picked up the hats with one hand, while grabbing Clay's arm with the other.

While all this is going on, I'm aware that people are staring at us. I can only imagine what they're thinking. I deliberately avoid eye contact.

Clay takes off again, shoots me a challenging look, and starts walking around the waiting area. Only this time, he adds the element of kicking his shoe off every few steps. I see his shoe flying through the air out of the corner of my eye as I wrestle Brooklyn into a chair and call to Clay, "That's one. That's two..."

Clay stops and starts to walk toward me, but again Lexi, trying to be helpful, tries to catch him which sends him screaming through the shop.

"THAT'S IT. We're leaving. GO!" I say, indicating the door. "You guys can't behave for 5 minutes and now we're leaving. Go."

The kids all file out without a word. Except for Clay, that is. As he reached the door, he asked, "So, does this mean, we're not getting suckers?"

Austin and Savannah told me that the other waiting patrons laughed at this. All I heard were the sounds of applause as we left the building.