Hair

I like my hair colour. It’s taken a while; I used to be convinced that God had made a mistake when He chose to give me not-quite-dark-enough hair, and I’d dye it regularly to make up for the error. While I was at school I experimented with various shades of red, and then later, at uni, I gave blonde a go, which was disastrous but probably a helpful lesson to learn. And then one day I realised how much money I could save if I didn’t have to buy dye every couple of months, and how much time I could save if I didn’t have to factor in hair-colouring to my getting-ready-for-an-event schedule, and I decided then and there to let the dyed parts grow out. I haven’t dyed my hair since. Because I’m a lazy tight-arse, pretty much. And also I’ve grown to like my natural colour. 

There are lots of parts of me I used to like but now, not so much; it‘s kinda nice that my feelings about my hair colour have headed in the opposite direction.

I used to cut Mo’s hair, until he got too squirmy and his hair started looking particularly hacked, when I decided to try out a barber. Unfortunately the one we chose was uncommunicative and rough, and so we decided to use our clippers in future and shave Mo’s head ourselves. He looked like a bogan with clippered hair, but it was free and quick, and so we’ve stuck with this system ever since. The one teeny tiny problem with this, though, is that Moses HATES having his hair clippered (he also hates having his nails cut; he basically just wants to hang onto everything his body has grown), and every time we do it he seems so devastated by the experience that I decide we’ll try out a new style that involves a kinder barber and less machinery against his head. 

But then after a month or so his hair grows over his ears and looks untidy and terrible, and then something big and important inevitably comes up (Nanna Parsons comes to visit/a friend has a birthday party/etc.) and I realise I can’t let him be seen or photographed with hair like that and there’s no time to go find a barber. So we pin him down and clipper it again (we do love you, Mo, I promise). We use the 3mm attachment so that it will take forever to grow and we won’t have to think about haircuts again for as long as possible, so Mo goes for a week or so around haircut time looking like he’s terminally ill, and then he goes for a few weeks after that looking like a regular (bogan) kid, and then he starts to move from regular kid to feral kid, and then the whole process starts again.

Kerry suggested we try putting his feet in a bucket of warm, salty water while cutting his hair to somehow ease the trauma, and it did seem to help last time; next time I plan to test whether or not the water working was purely a placebo effect and I could therefore use something else instead. And the time after that I’ll let him grow it longer and then find a barber.

Hazel has a mini dreadlock. We haven’t cut her hair yet because Alan doesn’t want us to, and also because I never have scissors close by when I spot her dreadlock. I have no idea how we’re supposed to decide how to style her hair as she gets older: Fringe or no fringe? Long or short? Pin her down and clipper it? There are too many choices, and too much time before she’ll care enough to make her own decisions about it. Also, is it fair that if Hazel hates having her hair cut in future she‘ll be able to get away with it staying long because she’s a girl, but poor Mo has been shorn far more times that he’d have liked just because he’s a boy? OF COURSE IT’S NOT. What to do?

And finally there’s Alan. His hair is completely his responsibility, fortunately.

(For the record, these cheap clippers were dodgy, so we returned them. But it was worth trying them out, just for this photo.)