Playing with Scissors, by Trish Smith

My daughter, Caitlin, has a long and unhappy history with scissors. A few years ago she gave herself a haircut. Actually, I'm not sure if it qualified as a 'haircut' because that carries with it connotations of style and an appreciation of the relationship between the shape of one's face and the cut of their hair. No, I think this was a little more spontaneous than that. Like pruning the ivy at the bottom of the yard with the really big secateurs when you've just had an argument with your husband. There were great chunks of hair - not the wispy bits that float down the front of your slippery hairdresser’s cloak and land in your handbag. These were chunks, thick and short bunches of hair that fell with an almost audible 'thud' onto the carpet behind the curtains where she was hiding.

We followed this up with a quick trip to a real salon to get a real haircut, and she came out with short, pixie-hair (very cute, but possibly not what she had in mind). A year or so later, Caitlin's hair was almost to her shoulders - thick, blonde, curly. Women in Los Angeles pay small fortunes to have hair like Caitlin's. Beautiful curls that twisted and wriggled in the sunshine, healthy and shiny and cascading... except for that patch on top. That was quite a bit shorter.

She said it was getting in her eyes. Rubbish. It had been getting in her eyes a week earlier so we dropped into the hairdresser's and asked if they could fit us in for a quick trim. They couldn't, but the lovely woman said she'd at least get the fringe out of her eyes, and then made an appointment for us in another week to get the rest tidied up. By the time that appointment came around, we were back in there asking for another pixie-cut.

The funniest thing is that, although she seemed to have learned nothing from her first adventure in self-grooming, she actually managed to realise that, if you are going to cut your hair, it's best to hide the evidence. Once Daddy had calmed down, and Mummy had vacuumed the floor, she sheepishly admitted that there was a little bit more hair hiding in her school bag. So there was. Oh, and a bit more in there with the Barbies. Oh, and look! Barbie's had a haircut, too. No longer the Surfer Girl from Venice Beach. Barbie was now a wheatgrass farmer living out of a Kombi in Nimbin.

How is it possible to have two children, one who could be trusted with a Swiss Army Knife and another who would take that Swiss Army Knife and not only open up every single little tool but see how many of them would be capable of gouging large pieces out of the dining table? It's like she's from a different family, I swear.

Trish

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