Wednesday, January 7, 2009

scissors

I’ll never forget sitting across from the noisy boys’ preschool teacher for my first ever “parent-teacher conference.” I was nervous and concerned. How were my three-year olds really doing? I wondered.

I got tears in my eyes as their teacher went on and on about how wonderful my boys were, how much she enjoyed having them in her class, and—this was the one that made me cry—how well adjusted they were.

(I secretly feared that I had somehow irreparably screwed them up, in only three short years. Little did I know there would be plenty of time for that later.)

The only thing we needed to work on? Their cutting skills. I remember staring blankly at her across the miniature table thinking, you mean I’m supposed to give these little people scissors? Really? I thought I was doing a good job keeping the scissors away from them.

Fast forward a few years and here we are with another toddler. Another chance to “get it right this time around.” So, you guessed it, I give this one safety scissors to practice his cutting skills.

It’s been interesting, to say the least.

Using scissors is probably his favorite activity right now, besides scooting his chair up to the kitchen counter and stacking up piles of bread in the toaster oven, preferably with butter.

The funniest thing is when he disappears for awhile, then comes back with scissors—usually when we’ve said something truly unreasonable, like “no we’re not having macaroni and cheese for breakfast today.” He goes and finds his scissors, and goes to work on that box. Like if he could just get those noodles out, there might be a chance.

Never a dull moment...

8 comments:

Sarah said...

He sounds like me. :)

Holly said...

One of our girls practiced her cutting skills on her sister's bangs . . . eventually they grew back :)

Anonymous said...

I was always willing to risk my daughter's cutting skills....and then, like Holly, she took them to someone's bangs. her own. A mullet is an interesting hair style on a four-year-old girl.

Marmot Mom said...

Reminds me of the day my girlfriend woke up from an (unplanned!) nap to find her little guy had gotten into the cupboard, taken out a box of cake mix and dumped the entire contents on the kitchen floor.
"Why would he do something like that?" I said ignorantly.
"Uh..." she said patiently, "maybe the picture on the box...??"

A-h-h-h...

Marmot Mom said...

(...See? you tell a story about SCISSORS and all I can think about is the FOOD angle!!!)

everydayMOM said...

I just love the preschool scissor test. Nevermind that he knows all of his letters and can count to 100. "He really needs to work on his cutting."

Very inventive for the little guy to try to cut his way through to his favorite food!

PS. I'm not happy that my word verification word below is "whine". Can that thing read my mind? =]

L.L. Barkat said...

we all need our tools.. looks like he's found one for the current season : )

Megan said...

I just joined your blog...the name got me in b/c there is actually a book out there (we have read it EVERY night since recieving it on Christmas) called "Llama Llama Shops with Momma" ... it's cute, and rhyme-y and the best part (imo) is the use of "llama drama" mid- book.
and eeeek! scissors scare the ba-jeeezus out of me. my daughter has beautiful curly-cue hair... and i can just imagine the damage my son could do to it!