It's Only Hair.....

So my Sunday started out very typical....early but relaxed. We like to keep Sunday as a down day, a day for relaxing and spending time together doing whatever. This past Sunday was no exception. I made the declaration early on in the day that I was having a couch potato jammie day, something I very much needed after the long week I had. 

The kids were spending their Sunday in their usual fashion. In and out of the house, playing with this or that friend. Noah came in after a while and asked to play Monopoly so I said sure. As we are setting up the board and reading the directions to the new version we recently bought, Jordan comes into the house. She comes over to see what we were doing and that is when I noticed something was different. Immediately, I realized it was her hair but I could exactly see what was wrong. Finally I got up from my spot to see that she had cut about 6-8 inches off about 1/4 of her hair. 

O.....M.....G What had she done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to flip out, I wanted to cry, I wanted to wring her little neck but the voice inside of me told me quickly to chill and make her accept the consequences for her mistake. I immediately called my girlfriend, a hairdresser, and asked if she could do an emergent haircut. After telling her why, she said come on over so off we went. 

An hour later and alot of inches lighter, my baby went from 6 to 16 just like that. While she looked absolutely adorable, I could let her in on my positive feelings regarding her hair. I had to be stern and had to make sure she knew how bad of thing cutting your own hair was. Daddy did a great job of being sad about her gone hair even though he like me, loves the new look. 

It could have been much worse. She could have scalped herself or cut it too short to fix. She could have cut off a finger instead of hair. But she didn't and now she has a cute new style despite the poor circumstances. I have a feeling she will keep it short for a while but I told her I love her no matter what length she has it. After all....it IS only hair!!

Finding our way

One of the hardest things I think that we have come across since we have become parents is finding the correct way to appropriately discipline and reward the kids. I constantly feel like we find a good groove and then something changes. Of course, no two kids are alike and our two couldn't be more different. So that makes our approach even harder because while you want to be even across the board, each child is affected different by the outcome of their actions so that becomes another factor.

Noah is the "please everyone" type of kid. Telling him you are disappointed in him becomes the end of the world, talk about turning on the water works. He gets flustered easily and is very sensitive. But in the long run, no one is harder on him than himself and he is only 8!! I fear his teenage years because I see how much he beats himself up now when things don't go correctly. He is actually much easier to reward and discipline and he pretty toes the line as best as any 8 year old should.

Jordan, well she is a whole other story. She does what she wants, when she wants and she could care less if you are disappointed in her. She marches to beat of her own drum and isn't afraid to let the world know it. Trying to come up with ways to teach her right from wrong has been met with tears, frustrations, screaming-matches, a lot of being grounded and sometimes, just throwing in the towel. I still struggle daily with trying to find just the right thing for her but I am confident it will come to me or I will go crazy trying!!

At the end of the day, our munchkins are completely night and day and every day brings a new challenge with one of them or both of them. I know I have many days filled with stress and worry ahead but I am confident we will trudge through. Parenting is definitely not for the weak by any means!!