Hair today, gone tomorrow...

After a friend showed me how, I bought some clippers and started cutting Liam’s hair several years ago, and soon began cutting Bill’s hair as well.  Things were going along fine, mostly.  I didn’t always cut it exactly the way (I only really know one way to cut it – shaved, depending on how long a blade I use it is either shorter or a little bit longer, but not so much in the way of variations.  That is usually not a problem and if anything the girls want me to cut dad’s hair as short as possible…)  I don’t always fit it into our schedule as often as Bill would like, so I’m not as reliable in that way as when he would go to the barber on post, but we have certainly more than paid for our clippers over the years.

Liam would rather never get a haircut. He usually fusses and fights, cries and often has to be bribed, or even pinned down (on someone else’s lap), in order to cut his hair.

Sometime along the way, Amanda picked up the clippers and she would cut their hair instead.  She does a really good job, and even cuts her sisters hair occasionally as well. NOT with the same clippers, but with scissors… (a friend of ours showed her some basics for cutting hair awhile back). 

The other day, as I’ve been packing and unpacking at our new house, I ran across some hair (curls) of Liam’s from before we went in for his hip surgery two summers ago.  I made sure to cut his hair really short before, so we wouldn’t have to deal with it while he was in the body cast for 6 weeks and wouldn’t be able to bathe…

Well, as Amanda was getting ready to leave for college in Hawaii last fall, we made sure to get Bill and Liam haircuts, as by then, Liam mostly liked Amanda to do it more than me. Not that he still didn’t fuss and fight, but he preferred Amanda…

As fall moved on into winter his hair had grown out quite a bit, and we kept telling him he NEEDED a hair cut.  He informed me one time that, “This was not a hair cutting house, because Amanda wasn’t here” and that he would wait until December when she came home for Christmas break!  Well, he stuck to that, and refused to get a haircut until Amanda came home.  His hair would stick out all over the place and he hated to let me brush it or do anything with it!

 Back story:  when he went to preschool as a 3 yr old, there was a little boy in his class who came EVERY single day with a Mohawk! It was a source of conversation and the sisters  would want to ‘play’ with his hair to try to make it into a Mohawk on occasion but he wouldn’t hear of it!  He hated it and didn’t like anyone to ‘mess’ with his hair and if we did he was sure to remind us he did NOT want it into a Mohawk! Perhaps this is part of his reasoning behind not liking it brushed and ‘fixed’. 

Anyway, Amanda cut his hair, literally, the DAY (night) she got home from Hawaii!  So now we have moved on, winter into spring, and his hair had grown out and was beginning to look a bit unruly again… he would be teased by his sisters that he was starting to look like a girl. He HATED that! I would on occasion try to brush it with a wet brush, to have it not look so straggly and like he had bed head –which he did- when he went off to school.  He would say he wasn’t getting it cut again, until Amanda came home.  So, we’ve dealt with it, messy, sticking out hair and all…

HE had even begun to twirl it around his finger… 

 However, about two weeks ago, he came up to me one day and said, “You know what?  I’m going to get my hair cut on April 8^th.”  Well, this surprised me and I wondered at the reasoning behind it, and he went on to tell me that he wanted it cut on the 8^th because that was Easter…  I asked if he wanted to look handsome for Easter Sunday in his new suit, and he just grinned. (I had bought him a suit awhile back when it was on sale, and the shirt was a sort of aqua blue color, that is his favorite color – a story for another day – and I have saved it for Easter Sunday.  Not that he hasn’t wanted to wear it all along, but I’ve told him that is for Easter, so perhaps he decided he really wanted to look nice when he finally got to wear the new suit, and needed to have his hair cut to go with it.  I don’t know for sure, maybe I’m reading things into it, but it makes for a cute story. 

So on Easter morning after the baskets had been attacked,
candy consumed and the general craziness had finished and then we started to get ready for church, he came in, sat down on the stool in my bathroom and got his hair cut. He even picked out which cutting blade  guide he wanted. 

 Say goodbye to Alfalfa. He complained a little bit, but he did great and definitely looked a whole lot better, when we got him dressed and went off to Church.

Look at that good looking hair cut…

Now to dress him up again one day and get him to sit still for me to take pic’s of him in his Easter suit!

The Hair Dr.

O.K. so I'm not the most frugal person on the planet, but when it comes to my personal hair care and body care items, I feel guilty spending money as well as time on myself. This past year I had decided it was time to take better care of myself, and I was getting regular hair cuts, and color at a Salon. I would go about every 3-4 months for a new cut. I should probably have gone a bit more often, but... you know, the whole time and money thing... I would often just trim my bangs to deal with them until I went to get my next hair cut.

The last time I went in was for my birthday (in December). I was talking to my hair gal about the whole bangs and trimming them myself, and she said, just come in, I do bangs for no charge... I made the appointment to come back in about 3 weeks. Well, three weeks approached and I didn't think I needed it quite yet, so I called and cancelled. I should have known better, because if I don't have another appointment on the books, I tend to not go...

Here it is nearly 7 months later, and my life is crazy! The other morning, after being awake part of the night rubbing Liam's itchy spots, along the inside of the cast openings.. I got up showered, but by the time I'd gotten dressed, he was unhappy and wanting me to 'snuggle' with him. (A difficult thing with a body cast, but I do my best to get close to him and hold his hand and 'snuggle' with him). Anyway, I got up a while later and my hair had dried and was just a frizzy mess! I have trimmed it (a bit more than just bangs a time or two since my last hair cut), but that day I had HAD it! I couldn't stand it anymore! I knew however that it would possibly take a while a week or more to get an appointment with my hair gal at the salon.

I considered just running to a local quick cut place in one of the strip malls near a grocery store nearby... but Liam was having a particularly whiny day! He was so miserable and unhappy, it didn't seem likely I'd be able to get away for much at all, any time soon! So, I did it! I picked up my hair scissors, and started whacking away! I was so tired of it, I didn't want just my bangs trimmed, I wanted it cut! I wanted it shorter, easier to deal with all summer while dealing with a sad boy...

Rebekah came in while I was cutting and asked what on earth I was doing?!?!?! I said I was sick of my hair and I was cutting it! I started whacking away, but realized, that it was NOT going in anyway that I was going to be happy with! Yikes! Now what?!?! SO I did what I should have one in the first place.

I called the Hair Dr!

I've seen her 'work' before when someone lost her piggy tails (if I remember correctly) (o.k. she cut them herself), and the Hair Dr. did a fantastic job of making that little girl look like an adorable little pixie until her hair began to grow back again... I knew she could fix anything! (and honestly my hair wasn't 'ruined' but it needed some help and some direction!) When I told her what I'd done - stared whacking at my own hair, she said, "Ooooohhhhh!!!" I could tell she would have been happier with a call before I did some semi-permanent damage! but it is what it is! I was desperate and tired!

I am soooo thankful that she had time for me in my hour of 'need' (crisis)! A sweet friend who cuts hair. And she made a HOUSE Call!!! Happy day! I tied my hair up in a scrunchy, and waited for her to come.

So, now I am sporting my new 'Do' for summer, it is shorter, not so hot, not so hard to deal with and it's going to be easier and less time consuming for summer, and for a tired, busy mom! And apparently, I have some curl I didn't really realize was my own (not just left over perm from a whole year ago). I even feel a little sassy...

I'll have to fix it up and take a picture.

Thanks so much to my Hair Dr! for coming to my rescue!

1st Hair cut!!!!

I NEVER thought I'd be one of those mom's who let her boy's hair grow out long... well, with Liam having such sweet little curls, I could NOT bear to cut it before now! Once I finally decided I should probably get it cut soon - a month or two ago, I thought perhaps we could hold out till his 2nd birthday the end of April... well, once dad heard we were going to get it cut, he wanted to take him to the barber shop on post. He wanted to wear his uniform and have Liam in the cute little camo shirt I'd bought him, at the military barber. However... he was leaving for a week! I told him he could do it the following week, before Easter - Bill was not so thrilled about the idea of having to put on his uniform while he was on leave, just to go get a hair cut! ;-) As it turned out, we were so busy building a room there was NO time for haircuts! Bill left the following week, so now that I really wanted to get the boys hair cut, we didn't even have a chance! I thought Bill was going to be gone the following week as well... but lucky for all of us, he's home this week! So bright and early Monday morning we went to the Barber shop!


Liam was not particularly happy, He watched Daddy get his hair cut, and seemed a bit concerned by it all. He didn't really like it when it was his turn, but he did sit pretty patiently, for a while... then he'd had enough! Unfortunately, he still had half of his head to go! The nice lady got him a lolly-pop and he settled down for a little while longer. Then when that had lost it's appeal, she handed him the big soft brush that they use to brush away all the stray hair after the hair cut. He liked that, and tried to help out! While he was getting his hair cut, the Andy Griffith show came on, after the opening whistle song, that caught his attention and made him quickly turn his head to watch, he pretty much ignored it. I thought it was pretty funny that in this picture I happened to get the t.v. in the background, and it is of Andy getting his hair cut at Floyd the Barber's!

We couldn't have planned that one!

When we first walked in he was a bit wary of the clippers that have a vacuum attached so it will suck the hair right up as it is cut. It is pretty noisy! By the end, when she used the clippers on him, she had taken the vacuum hose part off. then when she used the vacuum on him, he thought it was pretty cool and liked having his hair sucked up! At the end, he is checking out his new cool hair cut in the mirror! Isn't he handsome? My little man!

Here's a bunch of his little curls so I can put them in his scrapbook.

Liam had a pretty big day all in all. After the hair cuts, we shopped for a little while, then went to lunch for visiting teaching. We had a good time and ate some yummy food at Guadalajara (did I spell that right?).

As we were all leaving our friend L asked what we were doing this afternoon, I said helping her move stuff from her rental house to her new house? She said, thanks! We went over to load up our vehicles, and while we did that the boys played. Liam found a glove and put that on his one hand (no Michael Jackson pretenders here though!), grabbed a plunger since his little friend A had the shovel... and proceeded to play and try to dig with the plunger! Oh goodness!

Then while we moved stuff in to her new house, mostly into the garage, since a painter is coming tomorrow to paint the house, it didn't make sense to load up the rooms inside with stuff to have the painters paint around... the kids played (well, Liam actually had a nice little nap), after K got off the bus and Liam woke up. L was concerned that the kids might get bored while she moved stuff in and they had no toys really to speak of, she put up the bounce house that they have. So HOW COOL is that!?!?! when do you ever get to do something like that, in your house! (only if it's empty, I guess).

Then, when we came home this afternoon, he played Ball with his new bat and ball. He sure tried hard to hit the ball(s). He started out trying to hit them all on the ground and it was a bit more like golf! ;-)

On another note:

Sariah has had a school project or two this past week. They had to make World War 2 Propaganda posters. One an encouraging good one, and one a bad one. I think she's quite creative. I didn't get a finished picture of the bad one, so I hope she will bring it home after they are done with them. She painted it all dark and sinister, with big red eyes in the middle with flames of hatred in them... then in red (like dripping blood) she wrote: He's always just around the corner! I think she did a great job!

The other day I measured Sariah on our family measurement wall. I try really hard to be pretty accurate when I do this. I try to get the mark straight and not go up or down when I do it. First off we showed quite a bit of growth since Oct the last time we measured people. But I was curious if I'd gotten it right the next day, so I measured her again...I swear I did it well the first time, but if it was accurate, she grew almost an inch over night! Which I suppose is actually possible, but how coincidental to get the one day he was going to grow!

Poor Amanda who is just shorter than I am, hadn't grown at all since the last time, according to our measurements. Neither had I (at least not up!) the girls have me measuring just under 5' 5" and the last time we measured, Rebekah was at 5' 5" so that makes her taller than me! I drink tons of milk, calcium! HOW could I possibly have started shrinking!?!?!?!). Hannah and Marissa had both grown quite a bit as well, (Hannah even more than Marissa, I was happy to see she'd finally grown - she was the 2nd shortest child in her whole grade for a long time!).

And Liam of course had grown as well.