Giving Herself Layers.

When Jordan Grace was little and even before she was born I was told she would need all kinds of therapies. The thought of having people work on my girl made me nervous, not because I don't believe in therapy, but because people didn't believe in my girl. The therapists  right away began to tell me about all the problems kids would have using anything from pencils to scissors. 

I am more of a believe it when I see it kind of person. So I waited for her to be born before I thought of anything that she wouldn't be able to do. I had more faith in her than most of the professionals I encountered. In my heart I felt she would be capable of more than the statistics that I chose not to Google. 

Fast forward to today, as we drove to the ice cream parlor, my mom and I were deep in conversation. We were headed to celebrate the first day of school for my precious niece Natalia, in the backseat sat my little lady quiet. I had placed Natalia's backpack beside Jordan Grace without a second thought, not sure why, I've always been proactive and sort of saw the danger of things I place next to her. I noticed she was curiously looking through her backpack but since it was the first day of school, I thought there would only be paperwork in there. As a former teacher and an experienced mom to my Ana Maria, an almost fifth grader, I've never known kids to keep scissors in their backpacks. They have always been left behind in their cubbies or desks at school, so call me crazy but I never thought that would be something she would find.

The image through my rearview mirror was one I won't forget. She proudly grabbed a piece of her hair over her eyes and placed the scissors just right, holding them in perfect form, it would take me a little while to process how proud I was for her skills. But first the shock of her about to cut her beautiful locks brought panic in my voice and I yelled, so loud in fact I scared her to tears. 

Mom reached back to take the scissors away as her lips began to tremble and she began to cry with passion. I didn't know if to laugh or cry, but I sure was in shock. All I could think was "her pretty hair is ruined." All those posts about other friends' kids cutting their own hair came to mind. I had just seen one recently on social media and thought it was so funny, but also thought of the dangers of having tools around that could cause harm. It wasn't enough to prevent this episode from happening today.

When we arrived at our destination, I opened the backseat door and saw her beautiful long locks on the seat and on her clothes. I wanted to make sure she knew that what she did was wrong. So I gave her a little lecture with words she would understand. 

"Jordan Grace, cut el pelo, NO, NO," she looked at me sweetly and shaking her little finger she repeated "cut, cut, pelo, NO, NO." We laughed about it in the restaurant and Ana María said proudly "Mommy, at least she knows how to use the scissors." Truth! Our precious one knew what she was doing, she knew what scissors were for and in her defense she probably couldn't reach the paper.