You Don't Mess With the Tanner Zohan

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!!!!!" This is the scream you would have heard if you were anywhere within a mile radius of my home Saturday night. I'd spent the afternoon hefting around food storage boxes and decided to plop down on the floor to read for a minute while the triplets were in the tub when... my back decided to stop working. (Now if anything will make you feel old, it is throwing your back out by sitting down on the floor. What the heck?) But I found myself in a very strange position: I couldn't stand up and I couldn't fully sit down, so I was kind-of "matrixed" mid-air in excruciating pain. Thus the scream. Quinn came bolting across the hall from the other bathroom where he was bathing Tanner, certain that I'd somehow lost a limb. And he was not just a little freaked out by how messed up that back of mine was. Long story short: I spent Saturday night, Sunday, and most of Monday flat on my achey-breaky-back, doped out on valium and Lortab, on advice of our good friend Dr. Dan, the ER Doc. And it worked: my back feels good as new.

But somewhere between Sunday and Monday I developed a horrible sore throat and lost my voice (quite possibly from Saturday night's scream), and I felt downright crummy. With the amazing help of Carter and Taylor and my good pal Christy (wife of Dr. Dan), the little four were well-cared for. And I assured everyone that I was fine, but had vastly overestimated myself because on Tuesday I felt rather thrown to the wolves as I tried to muddle through the routine by myself. I still felt rotten and I still had no voice, so I called Quinn at work and croakingly begged him to stay home and take care of me the next day.

Which brings us to Wednesday: The day started sweetly enough. I leisurely awoke at 8am. With Quinn asleep by my side. "Hmmm," I thought, "That's odd. The children are all usually up by 7am." My ears perked, but I heard not a sound from any of our six children.

And that's when the panic set in. You see, there are few things more startling than the sounds of silence in our otherwise raucous abode. I jumped out of bed (despite slight protest from my back) and raced down the stairs to see what was the matter. And this is what I found:

Huge chunks of hair- long, multicolored strands of it- all over the kitchen floor. Along with a bunch of chocolate wrappers. And four very wide-eyed three-year-olds with chocolate smeared all over their faces and lots of weird-looking haircuts.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!!!!!" is what I screamed again, probably louder this time than before. Quinn was downstairs in a flash, certain this time that I had thrown my back out again AND lost a limb in the process. "What is the matter?" he cried. But I was rendered speechless. I hadn't even assessed the true damage yet. All I knew was that somebody was in very big trouble.

That somebody turned out to be Tanner. Apparently Taylor had left her school scissors within his agile reach and he decided to play barber shop. Sydney- a willing victim, I'm sure- got the worst of it. (In the past, I could write sonnets about the mane of hair that child has, but those days are gone for a while. She now looks a lot like Angelina Jolie's child who sports the mohawk. And I'm pretty sure he's a boy.) Riley is not a whole lot better. And Bailey got off the easiest, but not unscathed by any means. Tanner turned scissors on his own head of hair, lobbing uneven chunks throughout, but this turned out to be a benefit as he was in need of a haircut anyways.

It's Thursday and I still feel pretty crummy, I still have no voice, and I now have three little girls with horrendous home-made haircuts. (Please, oh please, let the mullet come back in little girl fashion!) My food storage boxes are still not all put away (and I'm certainly not feeling very blessed for trying to keep up on this duty!), and I owe my husband, friends, and oldest two children a lot of favors for all their help this past week. Not to mention Dr. Dan. The only thing that is actually better right now is, ironically, my back. And back pain was the only thing that they'll prescribe valium for. Sigh.

Okay, okay. Time to stop my little pity party. I am sure that I will someday find the humor in this little incident. I give it three years. By then, the girls' hair should be grown out.