The chicken apparently has been brandishing flappy wings and 'flap' cutting her hair.

'Tufty' the self-hair dressing toddler, having a little nose pick too, nice.

Wandering round the house, the garden, and finally looking in the car, I find the culprit. Clutching, the now, four tufts of hair that my 2 and a half-year-old has ridded herself of, she has obviously been working on the principle that hair is an unnecessary accessory. When I see her, I cannot even believe it, she looks atrocious. I stare her out, raising my eyebrows and listening to her, and this is how it goes:

‘I didn’t cut my hair mummy, nooo, not meeee, not Esmie cut her hair…’ denials. Yes, we have been here before. The last time she cut her hair.

Then I question her, ‘well if you didn’t, sweetheart (teeth gritted), then who did?’

Shrugs, then answers, ‘Margo and Mitzi’.

So by all accounts, her next sister up, and the chicken have been in on this too. The chicken apparently has been brandishing flappy wings and 'flap' cutting her hair, my 2-year-old tells me, scissors in hand, more tufts around her on the car seat. In her defence, at least she’s making an effort and looking in the car mirror to do it this time, not just chopping in the slap-happy fashion she has become accustomed to when she is in charge of scissors and possesses her own hair. Were it her barbies, well, this kind of sh*t is only to be expected, every girl goes through the urge to re-style, always dreadfully, and so the hair gets shorter and shorter, till barbie is now really no more than a tranvestite Ken, and gets shame binned. Poor unsuspecting barbies. Us girls all go through this stage, that ‘I have both scissors, and an uncontrollable desire to just hack at her hair’ stage. The thing is, OK, I could hide all the scissors, but the other kids love to cut and stick and paste and the like, so I cannot punish all four kids for one of them having an OCD about cutting her own hair, badly. I am in a right pickle, and looking at her right in front of me, I have the urge to either put a wig on her so we CAN actually venture out in public, without her looking like she has some kind of disease, or looking like she has a mother that is actually OK and possibly even encourages ‘self-hairdressing’ in 2-year-olds. Or do I super-glue a hat on her head? I have never seen such a tufty, mahoooosive fringe. It starts from the middle of the back of her head, and stretches from behind ear-to behind and down a little bit, the other ear. Super.(see her above...check it out in real life, it's no joke).

The Friday I had some free time in the afternoon (I know, in real life, free time!) so I decided to paint stuff that I have been meaning to paint for months, possibly years. I re-paint some plant pots with special metal paint, it’s like ‘painting-with-mollasses’, I am aware of Esmie and Mitzi, making sure (as they are painting outside too whilst I do this) they come nowhere near. I suddenly see Esmie sneaking up, she is on a mission, I however, with ninja-like speed intercept (believe me, with toddlers as obsessed with doing anything and everything they can, from cutting hair, to all the leaves off the pot plants (please note the plural use, ALL the pot plants), to painting on walls and stealing sugar cubes and chocolate, to name but a few things), i am just in time to grab her hand before it plunges into the paint pot, which she no doubt intends to rub into her head, just to take the focus off her tufty-hair. In my haste, I fling black metal paint everywhere, up the outside wall, the floor, and over my leg. My friend unexpectedly arrives, so I rush around trying to clear up the molasses paint, failing miserably to get it off my leg. I give up and put jeans on, to cover it. We go to school together to pick up the kids, and I walk around with my jean stuck to my leg for the next 3 hours, as we go to the park after school.

I am forced to take a bath that night, and rip the jean off the leg, no matter what I do, it’s not coming off, it’s just got stickier in the hot bath, I decided shaving it off is the way forward, I am wrong, ever tried shaving your legs with treacle on them? No? Well then, I wouldn’t bother.

I wonder what next week will bring, there is definitely something in the air at the moment, and it’s polluting my household…anyone have the anecdote? Let me know…