Rites of Passage & Teachable Moments

First steps.

First pretend tea party.

First Manicure. 

First dance with Daddy.

Oh, the sweet rites of passage for a little girl.  But there's another, less beloved rite of passage for little girls:

FIRST TIME CUTTING HER OWN HAIR.

Well, tonight it happened, folks.  After dinner, we sent Grace upstairs to fetch her pajamas.  She came down awhile later holding her princess nightgown and with a trembling lip, handed me a handful of hair.  

At first I thought she'd given her American Girl Doll a haircut.  She said, "It's not Cici's hair.  It's mine."  

And because it really didn't appear (at first glance) to be that much hair, I calmy just took her hand and said, "Grace, we are going upstairs now to get the scissors and talk.  No dance party for you tonight."  My calm demeaner was also granted to me by recollections of me cutting off my pigtails at the scalp two days before Kindergarten picture day resulting in the worst attempt at a Dorothy Hammel cut in the history of the world.  I mean, I'd known this was coming.  And all she had done was snip her ends. I resolved to not yell at her but attempt to put our relationship first.

But then we got upstairs and she pulled out of her pocket the very sharp hair cutting scissors.  The ones kept in her hair bag.  The hair bag she'd dug into at the beginning of dinner to fetch a rubberband for keeping her twists out of ketchup.  This was premeditated.  And dangerous.  I inspected the damage.  She hadn't just nipped the ends, she cut off one entire rope twist at the front of her head about 2 inches from the scalp.  

Remembering my resolve, I calmly said, "Grace, let's go in the bathroom and take down your twists so you can fully see exactly what you have done."  Her lip quivered, "Will you forgive me?"  

I said, "I love you.  Let's look at the damage."  

We took down the twists.  Her chest began to heave.  "Is it going to come back?"  

"Slowly.  Not for a looooong time," I said softly.  "Now let's try to pull it back so we can brush your teeth and get ready for bed." 

As I brushed her teeth, tears filled her eyes and fell down her cheeks.  

We finished up & I carried her into her room.  She was still sobbing when I sat down with her on her bed.  "Will you forgive me?"

"Oh, Grace, of course.  I love you and love forgives.  Even though you made a bad and dangerous choice, I forgive you. And I love you.  To the moon and back."

"I love you too.  Can we say our special prayer together?"  

And through tears, we said the Lord's Prayer together.  

Y'all, this is the first time my darling daughter showed repentance on her own.  And I totally would've missed it had I yelled at her. Yelled at her like I normally would have.  

Now to call my soon to be niece and tell her that her flower girl cut her hair & decide what we should do about it.