He chose the movie Mary Poppins, a good choice in my mind as it is a long movie and I planned to enjoy his quiet time on the couch watching 16 and Pregnant episodes that I had on DVR. After starting the movie, I reminded Jonathan that I did not feel well and asked him to chill out and watch the movie. He seemed sympathetic and said that he would.
And he WAS quiet. And he was being good. I thought to myself at one point how happy I was that he had developed a sense of empathy. This is great, I said to myself.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Yes, the child did not make a peep during the movie. Yes, he did not call for me until the movie was done. But something didn't look quite right when I went back to get him after quiet time ended. I couldn't quite place my finger on it at first.
Then something on the floor caught my eye. Red fuzz and something else. Not dust, which would be totally typical, but something else entirely. I bent down to pick it up and realized that it was hair. Human hair. I wondered from where it came?
Then I looked at Jonathan again. I didn't remember his hair being like that in the front; in fact, I recalled it looking more like this:
Usually hair looks longer the week after a haircut, not shorter. I asked Jonathan how this hair ended up on the floor and he told me that he did not know. I asked him again and reminded him that it would not be a good idea to lie to me as I was holding the evidence in my hand. Still, he hesitated. He started to roll around on the bed a bit giving me a better view, one that looked much like this:
Finally, he confessed that he took the kid scissors stored under the easel in his room and used them to trim up his stuffed Clifford's coat. Apparently that was not gratifying enough as he thereafter moved on to his own head.
An aerial view:
Part of me wanted to laugh as there was a time when I was about the same age that I cut a huge triangle out of my sister Laura's bangs. But the difference there was that I freely admitted to doing it when confronted by my mother (in fact, I recall being PROUD of my handiwork) whereas my child blatantly lied to my face about this. Apparently I was supposed to believe that the hair just fell off while he enjoyed a Disney classic. In sum, I felt pretty pissed off.
Needless to say, we had to have a talk about telling Mommy and Daddy the truth, that even if you are going to get in trouble for what you did, you will always get in more trouble for lying. God, I could literally hear my parents' voices as I said these words. I wanted to rewind ten years to a time when I would have been enjoying the nice weather by sitting on a patio somewhere with a beer.
I'm not sure that he got the message. He was pretty upset when I told him that I was going to tell his Nana and his Grams about this. And anyone else who asked. There were some sad expressions thrown around with a dash of whining mixed in for good measure. The scissors have since been placed where he cannot access them without asking. I hope that he learns something from this lesson. The hair will, of course, grow back and he will look normal again within a week, but I hope that he learned his proverbial lesson.
I think I still see an evil twinkle in his eyes, though, causing me to suspect that the "fun" is just beginning;
