I caved. As proud as I was of my amazing ability to style my own child’s hair, I had to turn him over to the professionals today. Remember how I said it would sometimes take me a full week to get Jack’s hair the way I wanted it? Well, the week turned into several, and I finally had to admit that all of the tweaking and pruning was turning him more into an art project than a finely-groomed young man.
I took advantage of our ABA Sunday outing so I’d have Christine as reinforcements. After our weekly (ok, semi-weekly) trip through the local Target, we walked through the courtyard and got the boys some smoothies. As they sipped their mango drinks and flitted around a water feature, we dropped it on Jack.
“Hey Jack, let’s get your hair cut today!”
“No, thank you.”
“Yeah! It’ll be so much fun!” How could it not be more fun than having Mama poking and cutting bits here and there every single day indefinitely? The thought of getting it over with all at once had to be appealing.
“No, thank you.”
“Yeah, we’re going to get your hair cut. Yay!” He was less amused, but he didn’t throw a fit. With Christine there he seemed resigned to his fate.
We should stop a moment and explain Jack’s relationship with Christine. Christine is an ABA – that is, she provides in-home behavior therapy. We work on sharing with siblings, toileting, not throwing tantrums, and just generally being a good guy. We also go on an outing once a week to help Jack acclimate to loud noises, crowds, and the scary beast known as “any potty that’s not the one at home.”
Jack listens to Christine. He does what she says. Christine has replaced me as “the hammer” at home. Now, instead of threatening a time-out or removal of a beloved toy, I pick up the phone and offer to call Christine. That usually has him falling in line right quick. So having Christine with us at the local Super Cuts was a stroke of genius on my part (and I’ll take those wherever I can get them, thanks).
Thankfully, the Super Cuts wasn’t busy, and a lovely soul named Vanessa gave me a slight nod of understanding when I explained about Jack’s sensory issues. I can’t explain how wonderful it is to anticipate a situation and have someone ready to handle it without question. She had obviously dealt with sensory-sensitive children before, and stepped right up without qualms.
Vanessa had him up in the chair and was cutting away in no time flat. Jack was so relaxed with her he even let her use the blow dryer to get the hairs off his shirt and neck. He ended up with the cut I had intended to give him, but am functionally unable to do so.
(I would also like to point out that he still has a lot of hair, unlike every time I’ve sent him with his Daddy for a cut. For some reason daddies are unable to walk a stylist through a cut, and can only come home exclaiming, “but she said they HAD to cut it that short! It’ll be fine when we wash it!” Um, no, it will not. Washing one-inch long hair only makes it clean, not coiffed.)
We were in and out in under 20 minutes, with all children happy as clams. That is, except for Lennon, who insisted he, too, was in need of a haircut. He is not. Yet.
Will I take scissors to Jack’s hair again in the future? Yes. I cannot lie. I will most likely trim it here and there until he is once again beyond my meager talents, when I will trot him into the Canadian equivalent of Super Cuts. And hope we have someone as wonderful as Vanessa.
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