And the moral of the story is...

...never leave your preschooler alone with a pair of scissors. Not even kid scissors.

I had everything prepared for our preschool lesson last Wednesday, except for one part. We were talking about the number 5—and the corresponding Bible story was Joseph's jealous brothers selling him as a slave—so the project was to cut out five wallets or purses from a magazine and paste them on the number 5 page. Usually I do the "homework" first, to spare a lot of time-wasting and distractions paging through a magazine together in search of whatever objects we're going to cut out and paste. Well, I didn't do it in advance that day. And, of course, I couldn't find any wallets or purses quickly in the magazines or catalogs.... so I decided I would make a copy of some coins in my purse so Brandon could cut those out. I left Brandon at the dining room table with the number 5 page, the glue stick, and the scissors while I went around the corner to copy the coins.

Well, the paper got jammed in the printer.... blah blah blah.... so it took a bit longer than I had anticipated. When I came back to the table, Brandon had his hands across his stomach and a frown on his face. I asked him, "Brandon, what are you holding on to?" His reply: "Nothing." So I asked him again, "What are you covering up? What is in your hands?" Reluctantly he lifted his hands....... to reveal....... two big slits he had cut into his shirt with the scissors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Argh! It took everything in me to not completely blow a gasket.

All I can say is, I'm thankful that shirt wasn't one of my/his favorites. He started to cry a little and said, "I'm sorry Momma. It was an accident." And truly, it was.... he really hasn't used the scissors very much..... I gave him a hug and we had a gentle talk about proper scissor usage. That took big "love muscles" and "mercy muscles" to handle properly!!! All credit goes to the Lord!