Hair Do's and Don'ts!

Andy needs a haircut. In fact, Andy's needed a hair cut for about eight months, but I am delaying his first official salon/barber/hair cuttery-atorium hair cut for a couple reasons. One, I'm lazy. Two, I'm cheap. There- lazy and cheap, that about sums me up, along with brilliant and bootylicious, of course.

His hair's getting rather wild. I've done damage control for a while now, snipping off locks and pieces here and there as needed. This is usually done in the bath tub, while Andy is engrossed in sucking bath water from the wash cloth, transferring water from one cup to another, or carefully scratching his balls. The problem with this method of hair cutting, though, is that Andy sits facing forward or backward, thus giving me proper access to only side of his head. Therefore, I can snip one side pretty good, but it's much harder to stand up, lean over, and try to match up the other side of his head. The angle is awkward, and it's just not a recommended way of cutting hair. This has resulted in a bit of unevenness, and, to be quite frank, I'm always a little shocked when I don't accidentally clip his ears or stab his head with the scissors. Guess I'm a better hair stylist than I originally thought.

Pro Tip.  Instead of a hair cut, put on a hat.

No, wait, I take that back. I'm suddenly reminded of the Great Hair Cutting Debacle of 1994. Thankfully, my own hair wasn't involved, which is a blessing since I've always had awful, frizzy hair which was much more awful and frizzy as a pre-teen and teen, and I certainly didn't need any extra hair debacles in my life. No, this Debacle refers to my sister's hair. I was confident that I could cut her hair into a cool, layered style, and my little sister, trusting as ever, allowed me to have at it with nary a doubt. If I were her, I'd have been asking a lot of questions, including, "Have you ever cut hair before?" (The answer to that question would have been a resounding no.)

I gathered a bunch of her hair, held it above her head, and then hacked it with a pair of kitchen scissors. When I let go of her hair, it did not fall into the chic layers I had envisioned. I had basically given half of her hair a cross between a mullet and a bowl cut (minus the bowl) and it looked... it was bad. I mean, really bad. This is testimony to my sister's good nature, though, and something I feel I still owe to her. She did not run off and tell our parents. No. Instead, she silently suffered through over a year of wearing ponytails every single day until her hair had grown out to the point where it looked halfway decent. And then she needed another hair cut, but this time she went to Fantastic Sam's like a normal person.

Anyway, with that particular hair cutting stint under my belt, you'd imagine that I would be reluctant to chop away at my son's hair myself, especially while he was in the bath and I had to bend over upside down to even be able to see the opposite side of his head. Well, you clearly imagined wrong.

For the most part, and especially since Andy is naturally handsome, Andy's hair has looked okay. The poor thing is cursed with my hair type, though- it's curly and thick and biologically unruly. Chris also had curly hair as a tot, but has since outgrown that misfortune. He was also blond as a child, which I find very strange considering how dark his hair is now. I'm pretty sure he was switched- not at birth, but at, like, sometime post-birth. Maybe at preschool was when the switch occured. I don't know, I wasn't there.

I think Andy's hair will look okay as he grows up. It helps that he's a boy and can buzz it or cut it close to his head if he'd like. If I find out this Friday that baby 2 is a girl, I am going to be somewhat concerned for her hair, but I guess I shouldn't get ahead of myself. For now, I need to be concerned with Andy's hair. We need to go get it cut, properly. Probably this weekend. Or sometime in the next month or so. Definitely by the summer.

When Andy was born, he had so much hair. It was insane how much hair he had. It was black and thick and made him look like a newborn with a wig. When the doctor examined me right before he was born, she reached in and said, with a bit of shock, "Wow... this baby's going to have a LOT of hair." Before they'd even let me hold him after he was born some six hours later, they had to wash his hair and comb it out. Andy didn't like that. I'll never forget those cries from the bathroom as I wondered what the heck my baby looked like and what in the world they were doing with all that VO5.

Andy's hair gave him personality as a brand new baby. Visitors exclaimed over his ridiculous head of black hair. He looked a little like Elvis Presley or a Beatle and even had SIDEBURNS. Then, his hair thinned out a bit, grew back less black, more brown, and curlier, and now here we are, twenty-some bath tub hair cuts later, bordering on the asinine.

So, big milestone on the horizon- first professional hair cut. I wonder how big the bath tub is at Kid Clips?