Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Mom Style ~ Or Lack Thereof

Well.
I did it.

I.
cut.
their.
hair.

No bigs right?
But in the spirit of full disclosure you should know that I have absolutely zero skillage when it comes to hair cutting.
Zip
Zelch
Nadda
Nope
None
I can't believe a store even sold me clippers.

I do cut Jordan's hair.
Correction.
I shave Jordan's head.
Jordan has gigantic brown eyes and foot long eyelashes like his daddy
so Jordan with a shaved head,
is ridiculously cute.

Shaving I can do.
Cuttting?
Notsomuch. 

But frankly with our ever increasing number of boys in this house
and the ever increasing cost of boy haircuts (crazysauce!)
I am stepping out into new territiory.
New hair cutting territory armed only with clippers and my lack of ability.

And that's when I screwed up.

I shaved Jordan's head first.
And they were watching.

And that's when I found out that they shaved their heads in the foster home.
I knew this of course.
I knew it because of pictures like this


look at all those sweet noggins of shaviness.
But what I didn't realize and didn't know is how much they hated that.

The boys went to school in the neighborhood in which they lived,
not an orphanage specific school.
So you can imagine the ridicule that occured every few weeks when all the orphans showed up at school with freshly shaved heads whist the other kids are sporting "normal" hair cuts and nicer shoes and uniforms.
Yeah.
I know.
~sigh~

So there I sat shaving Jordan's head as they are telling me this story.....
my heart breaking all over again for their years of not having a family and not having that safe place to fall back on.

I, rather quickly....(sorry Jordan), finished shaving Jordan's head and then finished silently kicking myself for not thinking of that; I put down the clippers and we had a little what'swhat about the fact that mommy was not going to cut it all off, just a little bit, I promised.

And being the amazing people that they are
they trusted me...
well...
....kinda
I guess I would call it a nervous trust.


So there they sat while I pretended to know what I was doing


and I'm happy to report
they still like me.


And I am definitely not cut out to be a hair stylist.
It's a good thing they can't see the back of their heads
I'm just sayin.

12 comments:

  1. Adorable photos...and more genius with words. Great work, Sonia. Shaling doesn't want her hair cut...even trimmed. The one time I did get it trimmed just a bit, it was quite the battle, with me pleading with her and promising her "just a little bit". I also found out that day (just in time) that she does NOT want to wear bangs. She often would show me how her hair was so long it covered her eyes and I had mistaken that as her plea to me to get it cut. Boy was I wrong! She was simply boasting about her hair length.

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  2. i am not allowed near any hair cutting equipment. I have cut bangs so short that it took all summer for them to reach a normal length. you are much braver than I!!!

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  3. Thank you for sharing their lives. It really is a picture into their worlds before they came home!

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  4. It took several trips to the hair stylist before my son stopped crying.

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  5. Had to smile. I once left the guard off the clipper as I was cutting my oldest son's hair. It left a track down the middle of his head. Thankfully he was in preschool at the time and none of the other kids seemed to notice. It was also cold outside, so he wore a hat....a lot.

    Since then, they always check the clippers BEFORE it comes close to their heads. :-)

    Love the pics. :-)

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  6. I shave too...umm no not me (um I do but its not on the head..)...my BOYS that is. My 8 yr old who is African American and now wants some sort of "cool" style...Umm yeah must check into that one for him. My 6 yr old (also African American) has locs, while its a lot of work we ~LOVE~ it.

    We had quite the time with shaving bringing up bad memories too we're over it for the most part!

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  7. Awesome job, Mom! I cut my boys' hair, too, and once in a while there is that "oops" moment. Usually when I grab the wrong guide...too short! But it sure saves some money!

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  8. The $$$ of boys haircuts IS total crazysauce! Holy smokes! I've accepted the girl haircuts but the boy ones are just as much! Sheesh! :)
    The story breaks my heart so much. Poor boys. Their faces after the haircut are SO happy looking! :)

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  9. The nervous giggle reminds me of Joe's first haircut.. he definitely does not want it short like the orphanage. It takes some careful cutting to keep his bald patch from showing too much and we need to cut it often.

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  10. I am so bad with even the clippers that the guys want their dad to do it! And now we Josiah's little braid to work around. (for now;)

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  11. YOu need the RoboCut!!! I just cut the boys hair tonight with it. I am tallying with a sharpie on the back showing how many haircuts I have saved! I love it. I cut both the boys in 20 minutes!! I wrote a post about it about 2 months ago with photos!

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