Amateur Hairdresser

Excerpt from my journal:
April 5, 2001

I cut a lot of my hair off today and put it in the grumpy mug.
Then I had to wear a hat until Katie could fix it.
I love Katie oh so very well.

Jaz needed a haircut. He'd been complaining for weeks about how his hair was in his eyes, and how he didn't like the way it looked.

Jaz, two weeks ago

I used to be the one to cut Luke and Jaz's hair exclusively, until I was in the hospital after Zeben was born, and my mom secretly took the kids to a professional hairdresser and had all of their (beautiful, naturally-highlighted) hair chopped off. It's true that it had become more difficult for me to cut it myself what with the combination of the kids having thicker, straighter hair (as opposed to that superfine and forgiving baby hair), and having developed the ability to complain loudly about needing to sit still. I was sad to see their hair go, but I wasn't sad to have missed out on an opportunity to cut it myself.

After that, I kept bringing them to the salon for hair cuts (where they behaved fabulously) until last summer when I felt like the hairdresser didn't do a great job, and like maybe even I could do a better job myself at home. So for the next hair cuts (sometime this past fall), I did them myself, and they didn't turn out terribly.

Thus, when Jaz was complaining for the umpteenth time about the hair in his eyes this past weekend, I said, "why don't I just cut it off right now?" And Jaz happily wet his head and climbed onto the "hair-cutting stool."

Ready!

I should mention that I have no idea how to cut hair. But for some reason, this fact does not bother me. I don't even have hair-cutting scissors or a fine-toothed comb. I use some of my sewing scissors and the wide-toothed comb left over from when I permed my hair at age 13 (how it has survived this long, I have no idea). Neither of which work particularly well, but I like being able to blame them as the reason for why I don't do an amazing job (i.e. I do know that I could buy real hair-cutting scissors at the drug store if I so desired). I like to think of cutting the kids' hair as something that doesn't require a huge amount of skill or any fancy tools.

Jaz played with Zeben's hair while I cut his.

Snip, snip. Chop, chop. I have no method or plan.
My mantra is, "it will grow back."

Zeb loves watching me cut hair, and having his own hair cut.

I think hair-cutting maybe is another one of those things that everyone used to know how to do, until professionals started emerging. And now we choose to pay $20 (or more) to have it done, when really we could just do it ourselves at home for free. Not that I'm claiming that the results are at all comparable, but I think the look is acceptable, at least for a 5-year-old.

Finished.
Jaz was disappointed that I didn't go shorter.

Lukas watched me cut Jaz's hair from the side lines and then announced that he's growing his hair long.

"Don't even thnk about coming near me with those [sewing] scissors!"

I think maybe I'd kind of like to be a Jack-of-all-trades when I grow up.