The other day my 15 year old daughter came into my office and showed me her ear – with a second piercing. Hold up – a second piercing? She hasn’t left the house much since the pandemic hit, and rarely without me. So indeed, she did this on her own, with a needle and rubbing alcohol. No ice. Just because she wanted to, with such little fanfare that I would never have noticed if she hadn’t told me. I guess it stands to reason, as the last time she asked for her ears to be pierced I asked her to wait. That was 10 years ago.

So the other other day, she came down to my office and said she wanted her hair cut. Short. As in …

She started her year with hair down past her shoulder, then a couple months ago she went shorter to her shoulder … but this time she said she wanted it super short. I mentioned that I could take her with me to my hair stylist but that was a couple weeks away. And she wanted it cut sooner. I had a few meetings so said I could come chat with her later and discuss options. She said ok.

After I had my last meeting of the day, I went upstairs to look for her, and found her in her washroom. I asked what she was doing and she said “cutting my hair!” – crazy kid was hacking away at the back of her hair, using a mirror and not the best pair of scissors. I had to laugh – told her she should have waited but she said it was fine. I tried to help her where I could by trimming loose strands because quite frankly and understandably it was a mess! I told her we best go to Great Clips to clean it up as I figured they would likely not be too busy and a walk-in was a possibility.

I still had some work to do, so she asked whether her Dad could take her. He had a busy day of running errands and had just sat down to chill a bit. He said he could take her later as he was going to make dinner. She called him on it – “You won’t make dinner for another couple of hours, can you just take me now?’

The benefits of being around each other every hour of every day – nothing escapes her.

And so the father did as he was told (have to laugh). And the finished product …

(The stylist gave her some coupons so she wouldn’t have to be so drastic next time around, to let the pros do their job).