Who says children are innocent?

We are getting the "hair pulling" report at the nursery when we pick Evie up at church Sunday and Tuesday mornings.

When we get her, we find out how many babies she has tormented, and specifically, how many babies have been assaulted by having the back of their heads yanked back by their hair, compliments of our daughter, who then lets go and laughs.

Yesterday, Bryan took us to Mom's group so I could get a little adult interaction and Evie could get some baby interaction. The other babies and mommies were (I think) less than thrilled that we came however, as when we were leaving, Bryan picked Evie up in the nursery and we were told "she only pulled one baby's hair today, so today was a good day."

Ugh, it was all I could do not to crawl in a corner and die.

We don't encourage this behavior; we don't condone it, and we don't allow it to continue. If we see her pull hair, we immediately grab her hands, pull them away (gently but firmly) from the other baby, get down to her face, use our "low tone voice," and say "nooooo" then we remove her from the situation, usually by putting her in her pack n' play for a minute. She finds this hilarious.

In fact, on Monday, little Sage was over, as her mommy was helping me out (since I'm still the one-armed bandit.) The girls were standing in the family room, holding on to the exersaucer. Evie reached up, grabbed and handful of Sage's hair. I had jumped up at this point and been able to get across the room before Evie was able to yank. I removed Sage's hair from Evie's hand, grabbed Evie's hand in mine looked her dead in the eye and told her, in my most low and serious tone, "noooo." Evie looked me back, dead in the eye, and smirked. She SMIRKED!

Sage of course, burst in to tears, so I felt bad that I made her cry when she had done nothing wrong, all the while my demon child was standing there laughing at me. I assured Sage that she was not the one in trouble, and then moved Evie away from Sage's head.

I know that Evie is all about exploration and reaction right now, (she is only nine months old, after all) so she pulls hair, the baby cries, she thinks, "Cool! I'm totally doing that again!"

But I see my daughter pulling the hair so hard of another baby, that the baby's head yanks back and the baby falls down and the baby cries, which then makes my daughter laugh, and I think "Oh my Lord, I spawned the bride of Chucky."

I am so hosed.