(it's not.)

Seriously, though, take a step back. In all of your parenting life, there had to be a time when you misplaced something like a scissors or a knife. There HAD to be a time when you left something dangerous near a child, or turned your back, or were something other than the perfect parent. Because you're a human being, and humans are not perfect.

My mom, who by her own account and my experience "hovered" over us as children, nevertheless could not stop my little sister (age 3) one night from cutting off almost all her hair with Mom's sewing shears--which were *theoretically* not where Jennifer could have reached them. ha! Nothing stops a motivated child, not heights, not nothing. They are devious and sneaky.

Just about every family has a story like this. Just about all of us freak out. Just about all of us eventually sigh and say, "Well, it grows back." Which is another way of saying, "Thank god she didn't hurt herself, now where can I hide those scissors THIS time."

We cannot wrap our children in cotton wool and store them in a lockbox until they're grown. We can only be as vigilant as humans can be.

Cut your daughter and these posters some slack. Cut yourself some, too; I hear the faint echoes of a parenting slip of your own in there.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor