September
2007
Haircuts
The boys went for haircuts again last Tuesday. They whole way there they couldn’t stop talking about going to get a haircut. We go to this fun place where they get to watch cartoons and sit in fun chairs, like 4 wheelers, or jeeps. Once again they totally switched on us. Drew sat in his car, watched his video, and even let the woman put a cape on him. (They’ve never done capes or clippers, it’s always been cut with scissors.) So the first thing she did was put on the cape and the second was get out the clippers. Drew let her clip his entire hair with the clippers without one problem. Toward the end his neck was getting itchy and it was bothering him, but no problems with the cutting. Unlike before when he would have to be held while he was crying.
Unfortunately Bran was taking a tune from the old Drew and he just screamed and yelled “no” every time we tried to put him in chair. Finally I held him and he got a clipper cut too. He finally calmed down a bit when he got to hold a stuffed animal and a lolly pop. Unfortunately after a bit of trimming his lolly pop was covered in hair and then the inside of his mouth, so he screamed about that too. I was feeling really badly until the woman told me that recently she had had to chase a little girl all over the shop to trim the back of her hair! Bran’s a riot though, because after the haircut I asked him to say thank you and was expecting a brief, but nice thank you…maybe. Instead he says “thank you for my haircut”! It was so cute and I think it made the woman’s day after having such a difficult cut.
Now that the boys seem to be okay with the trimmers, I’m thinking about buying a set and just doing it at home. I tried with the scissors and I can’t do it with them, but maybe the trimmers will work and it doesn’t seem like you can mess it up as badly as with scissors. Then…maybe I can do Mike’s too. 
I bet he won’t notice if I add a little bit of color or gel, what do you think?!
Much thanks to Becky who bravely joined us on this expedition and who was such a great help!
I haven’t paid for a haircut 10 years, and it is (mostly) better to do it at home than go out, and wait, and have to tip them, make idle conversation, etc. with the barber… I did like my small town barber growing up, since it was like the dentist, where they knew everyone in the family, and could keep reasonable tabs on everyone, since they saw each member of the family throughout the year.
When we got married, we purchased a relatively cheap set of trimmers, and I would recommend putting more money into it, that this one has to be cleaned all the time (like every other swipe through the hair) and gets bogged down and refuses to cut if you try to cut too much. It hasn’t quite been annoying enough to replace it, since it still works, but I’ll be happy when it breaks.
The nice thing about this place is that there’s a ball pit for kids to play in while they wait. Which makes waiting, for them, a little bit easier. But I know what you mean, I hate waiting and I always feel silly when they ask me how I want their hair cut. I don’t know, “short and not stupid looking?”. I don’t know if I want an 1/2 an inch, 1 inch, just cut it please. So at least if I’ve got the trimmers I can keep going if I don’t think it’s short enough.
Hope things are going well with you and your family. We haven’t seen you for ages!