There are two truisms I’ve come to know as a parent. First, you will spend a great amount of time hoping and praying that your kids learn to self-entertain, thus allowing you at least a modicum of time to accomplish the ever-growing list of parental responsibilities and duties. Second, those very rare moments where your kids indeed do find a way to occupy themselves are the moments to be most feared.
Case in point: this past weekend was my weekend to tend the kids on my own. (Beth works two twelve-hour shifts at the hospital every other Saturday and Sunday.) Saturday was a particularly productive day—with children in tow, I had done some banking, some shopping, and some cleaning around the house. We’d even managed to attend a pool party with friends—a particularly brave move on my part, considering that neither of my kids can swim, yet both are drawn to water like moths to a flame.
We returned home, and I began to prepare dinner. Caleb, still amped up from the swimming excursion, was constantly underfoot, demanding attention and making food preparation difficult. Grace, however, was strangely quiet, seemingly content to be playing at her craft table in the family room.
In retrospect, I should have taken this as a warning. Grace’s general modus operandi is to announce every little thing she does, usually with the request, “Daddy, come see!” But with Caleb’s clinginess and mom’s impending arrival, I decided to trust that she was entertaining herself in a proper fashion.
Big mistake.
There were no telltale signs of destruction when I did finally enter the family room. No overturned tables or spray painted walls. Nothing on fire. Grace was sitting on the couch—satisfied with whatever it was she was doing. In front of her on the coffee table was a little pile of . . . something. A closer look revealed something that looked an awful lot like human hair.
My first thought was, “Wow, I’m impressed Grace was able to cut anything with those safety scissors!” followed immediately by, “OMIGOSH, Grace just cut her own hair!”
I maintained a hope that my assumption was incorrect. Perhaps she was practicing her barbering skills on one of her dolls. Unfortunately, a quick look at Grace dispelled all alternative scenarios. In one hand, she held her toy scissors. In the other, another clump of long, brown hair.
Among the things Grace inherited from her mother is her long, thick hair. A couple other traits do not appear to have made the generational leap—her mother’s hair-cutting skills, and her father’s love of symmetry.
Pablo Picasso was able to use sharp angles and asymmetry to create a number of memorable works of art during his Cubist Period. Alas, it also was also his love of the abstract that caused him to drop out of cosmetology school.* (Nobody has ever said, “I love your hair, it reminds me of Picasso’s Portrait of a Young Girl!”)
Grace’s initial foray into haute coiffure, which no doubt would have pleased Pablo, was certainly not going to be to the liking of her mother, who prefers more traditional stylings. Beth had avoided even the most minor of trims with Grace, choosing instead to let her hair grow long. Only recently had she even considered shortening Grace’s hair. The timeline for this alteration had just moved up on the schedule.
Fortunately, I married a woman who is quite adept at adapting to circumstances. After picking her jaw up off the floor, Beth calmly pulled out a pair of scissors and started the delicate process of restoring order to Grace’s jagged locks. By the end of the evening, much of the damage had been mitigated and, after a follow-up trip to the local haircuttery a few days later, Grace had a new hairstyle—one that hopefully will last for another year or so.
To be sure, there are much more dangerous and/or destructive things that have been done by children in the split seconds between parental supervision. My brothers and I on our own could compile a list of past exploits that would fill a rather sizable tome.
Perhaps this is what worries me. I had always suspected that Grace had inherited all of her mother’s best qualities. It now appears that some of daddy’s DNA also made the transition. This does not bode well for the future.
Apparently, I am going to have to be more vigilant in monitoring our daughter’s free time. The potential for major chaos is likely to grow as her curiosity develops and the implements of destruction at her disposal become more formidable. And Heaven only knows what will happen if her brothers prove to be chips off the old Rempe block. (Local emergency rooms have been seen stockpiling supplies in anticipation.)
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*I was absent the day we discussed Picasso in art history class, but I’m pretty sure this is true.
Reflections from a Perfectly Normal Childhood 