Phillip scissorhands

Phillip has been quite the little devil lately. I'm not sure if it's the phase of the moon, the way in which the planets are aligned, or just plain being almost four, but he is definitely giving us a run for our money.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the grocery store with the girls while Phillip chose to stay home with Rob and our friend Leo, who is doing the electrical work in our addition. I noticed later that afternoon that Phillip's shorts had a little cut in them right at the bottom. It was obvious that it was a clean cut that had been done by scissors as opposed to a tear or rip. When I asked Phillip about it he got this impish little grin on his face and peeked up at me from under fluttering eyelashes so long they would make a southern belle green with envy. He claimed he didn't know how his shorts got cut, but his face told a different story. I continued to press him until he finally admitted that while Rob and Leo were busy working he had managed to got the scissors out of the (locked) drawer and cut his shorts. Since the shorts he was wearing were actually a pair of old sweatpants that I had cut the legs off of I wasn't terribly upset that he had cut them. Still, I wanted him to understand that under no circumstances should he be touching our scissors, much less using them, and that regardless of the age and/or condition of his clothing it was not okay for him to cut it. We had a little talk, Phillip apologized, looked suitably contrite, and all was forgiven.

The following weekend Phillip was getting ready to take a bath. As I was gathering up his clothes I noticed that one of his socks had been cut, as had his t-shirt. Our follow-up investigation concluded that this act of apparel vandalism had been committed using his little craft scissors. This time we sent him to his room for a brief stay and told him that he was not allowed to use his scissors for thirty days. That night after Phillip went to bed I gathered up all the scissors and nail clippers in the house and hid them away. We thought we had seen the end results of all of his cutting experiments but we were wrong. A few days later when he was getting his hair cut Michelle, the girl who cuts our hair, found a spot on his head where he had obviously taken the scissors to his hair. In an effort to curtail any future attempts at self-barbering she told him that if he cut his own hair again it would turn pink. A few days after that I noticed that the little tuft of fur on the top of Comet's head looked different. He has what can only be described as a little cowlick on the top of his head, where a little patch of almost white fluff rises to a point above his otherwise golden fur. Except now the cowlick doesn't come to a point, because you know who also tried his hand at grooming the dog. When I asked Phillip about Comet's cowlick I got the usual response, mischievous little smile, eyes lowered to the ground, and batting eyelashes...this boy will never be a poker player.

With the scissors locked away Phillip has directed his energy towards tormenting Kylie. He has taken to sneaking into her room during the day while she's at school and either messing it up or taking her things. The other night while my parents were here for dinner Kylie realized that her little notebook that hangs on a keychain was missing. I could tell from the look on Phillip's face that he had a hand in its disappearance. He had a laundry list of places the notebook was, first he said he flushed it down the toilet, then he fed it to the dog, after that he insisted it was in Kylie's room and took her up to look for it. My Mom was convinced that he didn't really know anything and that he was just messing with Kylie, but I suspected otherwise. I pulled Phillip aside and whispered to him that I would give him another of the brownie bites I had made for dessert if he would give me Kylie's notebook. His eyes lit up, he put his foot up in the air, and patted the ankle of his footy pajamas. Sure enough, the little stinker had dropped it into the leg of his jammies!

For all of his mischief Phillip is the most lovable little squirt around. Countless times in the course of the day he will come to me with hugs and kisses. He tells me I'm beautiful (even when I'm in my jammies) and is always quick to offer up an unsolicited "I love you". Between that and those dimples it's hard to stay angry at him.