After a morning that started too early, with a too-long hour to get ready to go to the co-op while I directed our siding contractors where to get to painting, a too-long visit to the co-op where we gawked at too many babies, and a too-greasy, unsatisfactory lunch, we woke up from a too-short nap, too cranky. While I tried to put away today’s co-op share, C&D took turns hanging off my legs and making each other cry. Even as my pretty little co-op plums turned to prunes and my peaches oozed into a self-cooking peach compote, we needed to sit down and have a bit of think.

So we sat on the floor and talked, and played trains, and then I remembered that I still needed to put my share away. I decided I needed find something exciting in the cabinet to keep little hands busy. And what’s more exciting than scissors?

I showed them how the scissors worked and watched them partially tear at the paper after making tentative cuts. As they began cutting randomly into a Shepherd School of Music calendar, I left them alone and got back to my puttering.

Half an hour later, they were still cutting, by then making infinitely small slivers and triangles out of the paper.

Half an hour after that David was eating dinner, but Carmen was still cutting. Soon after that she ate a quick dinner, but then got back to cutting.

Then, when she realized she had gotten quite good at this cutting-paper business, and had mastered cutting up mail, newspapers, and circulars, Carmen decided that scissors were good for other purposes, as well.We stopped her just in time (three times altogether) from stealing a lock (or a few) of David’s curly hair. David didn’t seem the slightest worried. Carmen, not to be deterred, just tried cutting her own.

(N.B.: How did they know how to do this stuff? C&D watch me give Matt an occassional buzzcut, and then we wait a couple of months for the hair to grow out again, sort of like a Chia Pet. I get the electric razor and we cut it all over again. But this is different, isn’t it?)

While he was eating yogurt before bed, David wanted me to take his picture. I thought I maybe should, and then put away the scissors.