I don't mean to post all the time about mein Wee Niblet, but, hand to heaven, he continually provides a mind-boggling amount of fodder.
For example, we have a deal in the household, when the kids are due for haircuts, that they can go sit in a stylist's chair somewhere and be enveloped by a plastic cape and false gushing about how cute they are--both of which are matter-of-factly laid on by a hair artiste who wishes she hadn't gotten pregnant at 19--or they can stay home and let me pay them a dollar to cut their hair. The kids spend about thirty seconds teetering on the steely edge of that decision, weighing the bright lights and free lollipop of Cost Cutters against their desire to save up one more dollar towards The American Girl "Feel-Better" Kit, ultimately tumbling towards personal greed over glamorous gratification every time...and saving us about $28 bucks in the process.
Indeed, I'm happy to shell out $2 for my kids to have the nicely-trimmed hair that tells the world somebody loves them.
Of course,
I'm not exactly a professional. I, em, wield good intentions more adeptly than I do a scissors.
In my defense, it's not exactly a disaster. I mean, who cares if an 8-year-old girl's hair slants dramatically downward and to the right, when she is viewed from behind? She hardly ever holds still or has all her hair in one place, anyhow. No matter the slant, it still looks all wild and happy when she's dangling upside down from the monkey bars. Plus, we always have the slick back-up option termed, in spy circles at least, braids.
And who cares if a 5-year-old boy's eleventy-nineteen cowlicks all conspire to make him appear a Young Einstein, even after the snipping?
Hmmm. Wait a minute. I guess I do. Niblet's Chia Pet hair is as unruly as the crew of kids on the morning bus ride to school, hair that often leaves him looking tragically untended (incidentally, damn you, third grader Caitlin, for forcing your way into his backpack each day during the drive and pretending to steal his applesauce cup, a little scenario that stresses out my kindergartener to the point that SuperMommy may be riding the bus one day soon wearing the coolest part of her hero's get-up: the patent-pending Stealth Pincher Hands).
So when I recently cut Niblet's hair, I decided to use the electric buzzer clipper doohicky wahoonie thingie all over his whole head and not just on the back section. Trying to get his hair to behave, I buzzed the kid's entire noggin.
Leaving him looking like a sociopath out on a day pass.
Oh, and let's check the clock at this juncture, shall we? We were a week out from School Picture Day (and 47 subsequent years of mockery, based on that picture).
The hair clearly waddn't going to grow back in before Picture Guy squeezed the birdie for 500 elementary school kids. (poor Picture Guy: imagine the chafeage after all that "birdie squeezing," not to mention the prison time)
All of this brings me back to my original point--and I did have one: Niblet offers up endless fodder. Case in point...while I didn't directly mention to him that he looked kind of scary after Mommy buzzed his skull, I did suggest that Picture Day is traditionally a great time to express personal creativity, and wouldn't a hat or a wig be a nice touch?
His unique solution, of course, was to choose to wear a hoodie that has monkey ears on it. Naturally, he NEEDED to wear the hood up, ears a perkin', along with a special necklace made out of three rocks glued together.
So the other day, in front of the camera and for all posterity, Punky proudly sported the monkey ears and covered up his Death Row 'do.
Other times? He puts on his bathing mask and takes a plunge.
My point, thus, is that when it comes to the Resident Bathtub Diver, I don't make the news. I just report it.
16 comments:
*snort* that last picture, totally channels my fiance. snorkel included.
Uncanny.
Well, he's a really cute sociopath out on a day pass.
My son had a Sampson thing going. I cut his hair while he slept, turning him like a chicken on a spit until the deed was done.
Now an adult, he gets his beautiful hair cut so short that I suspect they have to do it with tweezers.
Have YOU been cutting my son's hair?
Whenever I cut my kids hair, then take them to an actual stylist, I get major stink eye.
Sociopath do or no, the Wee Niblet is a cutie. Keep the stories coming!
Can't help but wonder how much mockery the ears will entail for the next 47 years.
I too cut my babe's hair. And I did it the NIGHT BEFORE picture day. Now I have an 8x10 reminder of my foolishness. Although intend to continue cutting his hair, I will just shell out the 12 bucks for the one professional cut before picture day.
That's it. I'm going out to find a monkey eared hoodie. Bad hair day solved! Thanks for the chuckles!
I wonder, Jocelyn--could you have been subconsciously responding to his unfolding true identity? Here you found yourself providing a really short hair/nearly shaved head haircut to a boy with a precocious inclination towards wearing goggles under water in the bathtub. We already know he has extremely sharp eyesight in the woods. It's of course just my personal association here, but could you be raising a future NAVY SEAL? I know, I know--shut my mouth after washing it out with soap. But who knows where Identity comes from? I personally have known only ONE Navy SEAL, and he was a stellar human being, good, true, noble-hearted, even heroic. You, however, may be thinking, "No child of mine will ever ....!" Just an idea, just a thought--and feel free to delete this if you wish it to perish.
Now that last photo looks like me when I discover there is no "slow lane'"in the pool and everyone else is super-fit, speedy and downright determined to finish their uninterrupted 100 laps. Yep, I can relate to that photo.
god love him, i shall have to send my not so wee 13 yr old limelet his way as my boy has endured the all over death row buzz cut his entire life until recent months when no amount of bribery has sufficiently swayed him to allow me near his head with the clippers. i even offered to let him have a mohawk for the first day of school, in protest of the new uniform policy (which i might add even forbade him from having his picture taken of picture day because it coincided with a game day for the football team and team members had to wear jerseys which were forbidden for picture day....and if you can diagram that runon sentence i will give you a dollar and consider giving myself a mohawk)
anyway, all that to say i think we niblet and limelet might get on famously as they commiserate the woes of buzz cuts at the hands of thrifty and somewhat subversive mamas.
also, wanted to thank you for the birthday greetings you left at my place over the weekend. much appreciated, dearie.
I learned long ago that cutting hair is much harder than it looks. Sigh...
GREAT photos! Who needs school pic day when you have beauties like these?
hehe, and you were worried about the school picture haunting him!!
LOVE the snorkle in the tub!!
snort is right ...my goodness your blog is tres funny. I love the way you write and I will be back again soon for more smiles and snorts. cheers from the dog lover from Nova Scotia
I used to cut my boys hair, but they both want longer hair now so it's harder. Still cut my own, though!
There is nothing more important than childhood picture day. Either spend the money on nice clothes and a haircut, or prepare for years of therapy bills.
You realise that an all-over buzz cut constitutes child abuse in at least four European countries...
Puss
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