I’ve made some parenting mistakes in my short four years on the job.

Like, renaming my daughter, “Damn It”.

Or when I inadvertently taught her to call people, “Lepers”.

But, by far the worst thing I have ever said to my daughter would be the time I told her she was actually a monkey and we found her by a tree in the jungle and cut off her tail to keep as a skipping rope.

Why would I have said this?

Why does my brain even work this way?

But, by far, the worst parenting mistake I have ever made has to do with Baby Bot.

Wait for it……..

Deep breath.

I grew him a “Baby Mullet.”

Not to be confused with the “Baby Bullet”, because those things are bloody awesome.

Baby Mullets, not so much.

I just couldn’t bring myself to cut his hair. He just looked so beautiful to me.  I even cut the front of his hair to full on “business” and left the back “full on party”.  Still, I loved it.  But, I started to notice that not everyone loved the Baby Mullet, like I did.

There was the time I was looking for approval and I said to an acquaintance  “I just cannot bring myself to cut his hair, I just love it soooo much.”

And she just looked at me.

She couldn’t even make anything up.

She didn’t even smile.

She winced.

Then the next day on Skype. My Father in law said to Whirlwind, “Tell your Mom that your brother needs a hair cut.”

Then we ran into a friend and he said to Baby Bot, ” Your Mom still won’t cut your hair, eh.”

And then my husband came home from the park with Baby Bot and said, “Three people called him a girl at the park today.”

This instantly pissed me off.  But, I couldn’t admit that this was all about me, so I had to somehow make this about Zed.

“So.” I said. “He’s obviously not a girl.”

“A guy told me at the park that his Dad is a barber and I could just take him there and get his hair cut right then and there. ” he stated.

“So, what’s the problem, the fact that your son looks like a girl?” I was digging. For some reason I just needed him to say that. I needed to have more power in this conversation about my little boys hair.

Again, why does my brain even work this way?

The thing is, Zed, didn’t think that, Zed didn’t really care about that at all.  He just saw something that I didn’t see at the time.

But, I saw it about three days later.

I was scrolling through some pictures on our computer.  And there was this kid. Who looked really stupid. Like, really, really, really, stupid. And it was Baby Bot and his Baby Mullet.

That night, we put his hair in a beautiful pony tail and said our farewells to the Baby Mullet. Again, not to be confused with the Baby Bullet, because that thing is bloody awesome.