It's been a busy day on the homefront. I was just reminded of one playground conversation I heard more than ten years ago, when I was a teacher's aide. A couple of girls who looked to be fifth or sixth graders complained "Our parents just don't understand; they're stuck way back in the *sixties*!" That was before I had kids myself, but I have to laugh. After all, anybody who is stuck in the sixties has to be an old fogey, right?

And, like the parents in that tumultuous decade, I've had to fight my ten-year-old daughter over her hair. Unfortunately, head lice is rampant at her school, and we've treated her with the shampoo three times, and she still got sent home Friday, for having nits. So, I took her into town, intending on getting her hair cut about shoulder-length, since I just didn't feel like going through two feet of hair with a fine-tooth comb one more time. We *have* to get this under control. Jim can't take any more time off work; and if I don't work, I don't get paid, and run the risk that another sub will just take over the rest of the days I have scheduled. And there's only so long we can impose on Grandma.

Anyway, we get to the hair-cutting place, and the lady says she can't legally cut Tory's hair as long as she has nits. And there were clearly visible bugs in there. She advised me to try mayonnaise, and tea tree oil which repels the critters and helps prevent re-infestation. So, we ran to the store, and I took her to lunch, and we had a fairly pleasant mother-daughter day. However, I was going to have to cut her hair. Now, I've only given one haircut in my life, and that's when I used the hair clippers to give Jim a buzz cut. So, this was going to be a risky operation. And sure enough, it ended up closer to chin length than shoulder length, and was way uneven. So, I called Grandma, telling her I have a little girl who may never speak to me again if she doesn't rescue us. Grandma tried, and in the middle of everything, Tory announces she has to go to the bathroom -- then she locks the door and won't come out, announcing she won't have her hair any shorter. She didn't care that it was longer on one side than the other, she just wasn't going to have any more cutting done. Grandma, being the wise soul that she is, said "Well, she's the one who has to live with it", and so that's was the end of the haircut. Tory has such pretty hair, too -- light brown, with blond highlights. It looks cute short, but I remember well how, at her age and even younger, I fought the grown-ups to have the long hair that was then fashionable -- way back in the sixties. :-)