Cookies and a Haircut

It was a normal Thursday at 2:00. My three-year-old was finished with her rest time (where once again she didn't fall asleep despite my intense prayer) and we were looking to fill the hour before we would have to wake her two brothers and put them in the car for our daily exercise in patience they call the "car-pool line."

I was particularly exhausted, fighting off a migraine and trying to caffeinate myself into coherence after 2 nights of very little sleep. I asked my daughter what she would like to do (hoping she'd say she wants to lie down and watch me sleep) and she asks if we can make cookies.

"Sure," I say, I figure that will fill the hour nicely enough and then we can hand out cookies in the carpool line (because if we keep them in the house I will eat them all and I am already almost out of points for the day even though all I have eaten is twigs and berries, oh and I somehow gained 3lbs this morning even though I have been adhering strictly to my diet and exercising 5 days a week for almost a month....but I digress, this post is not about my post partum woes of  untangible weight loss) and she will have a lovely memory of making cookies all by herself with mommy.

So we get the mixer out and start filling it with ingredients and as always I have to suppress my tendency to want everything done perfectly and allow my little girl to measure inaccurately and make a mess while doing it (this is when the eye-twitching usually starts).  I also decide I should go ahead and get dinner started so I am browning meat for Shepherd's Pie while monitoring the cookie-making.  Everything is going fine and we just have one ingredient to add to the dough.  The mixer is mixing for us and Sophia is on a stool watching in delight as it spins sugar and butter and flour around and around. She asks if she can please have a taste now. I am not exactly sure what happened next.  I am about 3 feet away at the stove-top stirring the meat, I can see her out of the corner of my eye, but the next thing I know I hear blood-curdling screams coming from my baby girl and before I can even figure out what is happening her head is flush with the mixer and her sweet little pig-tail (that I forced her to let me put in that morning) is completely wrapped in the gear above the attachment.

As quickly as I can I unplug the machine, but it's too late, her head is forced tightly against the attachment and she cannot move. She is, of course, terrified, and I am attempting to soothe her and tell her it's okay but very quickly she and I both realize that it is NOT okay.  I put a towel under her cheek and tell her to rest her head on the counter saying "whatever you do don't try to get off of the stool, and try to stay very still for mommy." I say this in the calmest voice possible as I try to ignore the flashes of horror I see in my mind's eye: her jumping off the stool and scalping herself, or falling off of the stool and the heavy heavy mixer falling on top of her.

Then I just start talking to Jesus "Okay Lord, what do I do....I don't know what to do..." and I start running through my options in my mind "I could call the police...no that's ridiculous this is not that kind of emergency. I could call the fire department, they're good in weird emergencies, is this an emergency? What would they do...they would cut her out of it...NO I can't cut her hair there has to be another way....I wish Adam was here, why did we decide to make cookies! I should have just let her watch TV, this never would have happened if we were watching TV."  I keep trying to figure out a way to just get the darn attachment off but it won't budge because it's too close to her scalp and I have no room to turn it to get if off. Meanwhile every time I move her head even a little she just screams and cries and says Mommy-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow, and my heart is physically hurting and I want to go back two minutes and be standing right next to her and prevent the whole stupid thing from ever happening.  "Jesus, what do I do, I don't know what to do..." Then out of the mouths of babes, my sweet, terrified little three-year-old girl says "Mommy, find some scissors, gramma has scissors, get the scissors!" (my mother lives with us and cuts the kids' hair)  I hadn't said anything about scissors, although of course it had occurred to me and I knew that's where we were headed but I was trying to find any other way, so the Holy Spirit had to resort to using my little girl, stuck under the iron grip of the Kitchen Aid mixer to wake me up to the fact that it's only hair and it will grow back.  Thankfully there was a pair of scissors where they belong (miracle of miracles because no one ever puts them back where they belong) in the drawer in front of her. I grabbed them reluctantly and with my eyes half closed started cutting her sweet little pig tail out of the mixer. Chunks of fine, blonde hair started falling onto the ground, chunks of hair started coming out in my hand and it felt like an eternity, but finally she pulled her head free from the heavy, white monster.

I picked her up and we sat on the floor together and cried and cried. All I could do was kiss her head and tell her I was so sorry. She calmed down quickly and I brought her to the bath where we washed the cookie dough out of her hair and watched more hair fall out in the tub. Next thing I know she is calm and bathed and eating ice cream on the couch, at 2:45 in the afternoon while watching a movie...because she got her hair cut out of a mixer and she can have anything she wants.  I called my husband, and as soon as I heard his voice I became somewhat hysterical, reliving the whole maddening event, and I inform him that he is going to have to please get the kids from school because we have been through too much here, and I cannot possibly get in the car and sit in that dreaded carpool line.

Miraculously her hair doesn't look that bad. She has a lot of hair so there's a small bald spot and a chunk that's about 2 inches short and then some random strands 4-6 inches long in the back, but if I comb it just right you can't even tell.   Of course it wouldn't matter if her hair looked terrible because she is safe and unhurt and nothing worse happened to her...but she is one little girl in the middle of 5 little boys and she refuses to wear dresses, or skirts and wants to play T-ball this season instead of take dance, and the one thing I have is that sweet braid-able hair!   ( Just a small caveat: If you are someone experiencing true suffering and sacrifice with your little girl please know that I realize this was not real suffering and her tufts of hair do not represent real loss, and I thank God everyday for the health of my children)

So I suppose there is a moral to this story. Perhaps it is to not be so busy browning meat while making cookies that you do not see the pig-tail on it's way into the monstrous grip of the machine making cookies for you.  Perhaps it is to be present to every moment, even the bad ones. Or perhaps when exhausted and in pain and trying to decide between watching a movie with your kid or making cookies you should pick the movie every time.  Needless to say, Sophia is a bit terrified of the Kitchen Aid now, and it may take some time and therapy to get her to be mommy's little helper ever again.