There is a lot of very sage, motherly advice that gets passed from generation to generation: don't talk with food in your mouth, never talk to strangers, always wear clean underwear. I'd like to focus on an oldie but a goodie: don't run with scissors.
I'm not sure that my 6-year-old son actually runs with scissors -- certainly I've never witnessed it. But there are plenty of other things that can go wrong with a pair of blunt-ended safety scissors. Like cutting your perfect spelling test into tiny pieces. ("I want Granny to pick a word and ask me to spell it!") Or cutting your bangs to the scalp when the teacher's not looking. ("Owen did it too!") And then there's snipping "vents" into your shorts. ("It was an accident!" he claimed. An accident? All thirteen times?!)
Milo always talks with food in his mouth, not only talks to passers-by but tells them all our names and ages as well, and as long as he's wearing underwear at all we're good. But I think I'd just rather he not have the scissors at all, thank you very much.
Happy sweeping!
Kathleen Gunther
Editor, ContestHound.com
