Hair Today... And Gone Tomorrow

Okay, so I am going to try my best to write about this situation, but I am already starting to cry just thinking about typing out the words. Feel free to think every bad thing you can think about what kind of mother I am, and I can assure you that I have already thought them about myself, but here it is:

On Wednesday night, just as we were talking about putting Degen to bed, Kyrie came up and told us that she had cut Degen's hair. In the dim room, I couldn't really tell if she had and Darren and I questioned if she was pretending or not. I quickly demanded that she bring me scissors. With assurances that she was just playing, she brought us a pair of plastic scissors that barely cut paper. With a sigh of relief, we reminded her that we don't cut hair and sent her off to play.

After I put Degen to sleep, I went downstairs to remind Kyrie that her bedtime was fast-approaching that she needed to begin cleaning up. On the floor, I saw what I at first thought was a ball of fiber, which is not unusual to find on the floor when you have two kittens running around tearing up anything they can find. I bent down to pick it up and was immediately horrified to find that I held in my hand a large mass of Kyrie's golden hair. I looked at her with terror, searching for the damage from across the room and asked, "what have you done?" For the briefest of moments, I imagined that the clump in my hand just appeared to be significant in its size and that nothing was noticeable. Then as I approached Kyrie and turned her shoulders, I saw the cut hair was just deceptively clinging to the other half. She had managed to cut off nearly one whole side. I shook my head, shock setting in and went back to Darren. I held out the clump of hair to him and said, "Look what she did. Her hair is gone. It's just gone" I didn't yell or scream or threaten. I just started to cry and spent much of the next 12 hours crying.

We took her into the bathroom and I got the scissors. Darren looked at me in slight horror, not fully recognizing all the damage that had been done. Through my tears, I choked out that I had to finish the job, that we couldn't leave half of her hair just hanging there. I would take her to the salon tomorrow so they could clean it up. Then I held the remains of her wavy, golden tresses and ran the scissors through. I couldn't bear to throw it away, so while Darren tended to Kyrie, I tied the hair with a bow and placed it in a bag. Then I opened the bathroom cupboards and took out our baskets of ribbons and brushes and ponytail holders. The sight of them renewed my tears. I went through them all and tucked away all, but the clips. I knew that seeing them in there every day would only break my heart anew.

Obviously, Kyrie had lied about not cutting her brother's hair and lied when she brought us the plastic scissors. I found her school scissors lying on the bookshelf when I went back downstairs later that night. I gathered up every pair, even the plastic ones and put them away. I honestly don't know how I will handle it when I have to give them to her during our next lesson.

The next morning, I took both children to the salon. Only under the salon's bright lights did the damage to Degen's hair become truly apparent. It was bad. Kyrie had run the scissors through all over his head, cutting the hair nearly to the scalp. The stylist apologized several times, tsking over her task. His hair was cut as short as a newborn's with several too-short patches all over. Kyrie's stylist was able to clean up most of her cut, but had to leave the side that Kyrie had cut uneven because she couldn't stand the thought of how short she would have to cut the remaining hair to even it out.

We are about two days out from the incident. Kyrie has responded in typical Kyrie-fashion; it is both beautiful & frustrating to have a child who doesn't care what others (including her parents) think about her. And me? Well, I'm still struggling. I have tried to explain as best as I can why I am as heartbroken as I am. I know that my continued melacholia over such a trivial, non-crisis is downright ungrateful behavior, but there are so many emotions that I have wrapped up in the whole thing.
I could start by saying that the end of last year and the start of this year have held some very difficult situations for me and my family. So, I was already in a precarious position emotionally. Then I would try to explain all the ideas I've held onto about what it has meant for me to have a daughter, that the time I took in washing her hair, brushing it, plaiting it, finding just the right bows to match her outfits... those everyday moments that we shared meant something to me, that they were clearly part of my definition of what it meant to have a daughter. Wrongly or not, I have invested emotional value in those golden locks on my only daughter's head, and now they are gone.

Childhood is fleeting, and as parents, I feel like there are a thousand ways we try to slow down that clock. Yes, mostly we only fool ourselves, but it is a trickery most parents are wont to give up. The day is coming, we know it: they can do 'it' themselves, they start school, they have their first sleepover, their first date. And for me, it was this haircut. In a moment, I lost my little girl in pigtails.When I look at Kyrie now, I see such a grown up girl. Her short hair gives her an air of maturity that her long, blonde waves had concealed in a fairy tale whimsy. My little princess is gone.

I could keep walking you in these circles, pulling apart layer after layer of emotion trying to explain to you why I am heartbroken. Maybe some of you understand, and maybe most of you simply think that I am an awful fool of a mother. "It's only hair." "It will grow." "Short hair is so easy." I know these things, I do. I am grateful that it was not worse, I am grateful that I have the privilege of having a beautiful & intelligent daughter at all. I know that is itself  the greatest thing. Appearance does not really matter. She understands this. I have told her again & again that I love her very much.

But still my heart feels fractured... I struggle. The shock is still too new, the hurt still fresh. Maybe years from now, I will look back and laugh on this like everyone says...  but I'm not altogether sure that I have that kind of sense of humor.

Well, if Kyrie didn't resemble Darren before, she surely does now. Her short 'do emphasizes her large eyes, which (aside from color) are just like her Daddy's.

 The right side is where Kyrie did her cutting, and it remains shorter than the rest. Hopefully, in a few months we will be able to even both sides out.

 I wish Kyrie didn't have such a fake smile in this photo taken in October, but I loved how beautiful her hair looked in it.

 I am grateful that Degen has such light hair, so that the thin patches don't seem as striking.

So, why did she do it? Within weeks of this incident, she had made several statements of how much she loved her "long, beautiful hair." If she fussed at having her hair brushed, I told her we could get it cut (and I meant it. We would have cut it, though never this short). So, what led us to this? She has made several statements that kind of reveal her child's logic behind the action.

1) I think that part of it is just the age and that this is what kids do. Most of us took scissors to a doll, stuffed animal, pet, sibling or ourselves- there is something so alluring in the power of scissors.

2) In explanation for why Kyrie has needed to have her hair trimmed in the past, we would tell her that it was necessary to cut away the 'bad' hair so that her hair would be healthy and grow even longer. Kyrie has told us that she cut her hair so it would be longer.

3) On Monday, Darren took Kyrie to see the movie "Tangled," which is a variation of the story of Rapunzel. At the end of the movie, they cut Rapunzel's hair. Kyrie has said many things, including "I just wanted to be like 'Tangled.'" that point to the movie as being an impetus for her actions.