Haircut Hell

One of the challenges my large family faces, is surviving a trip to visit my hairstylist for our monthly haircuts. On my own, with three kids in tow, we walk through the door, check-in at the front desk, and my stress level starts rising. I can see the look of horror on the receptionists face as we all parade to the seating area. “Oh god why would she bring CHILDREN here? CHILDREN!!” she’s thinking. Kids aren’t a contagious disease, they’re just annoying.

Once everyone found a seat, I turned my attention to resolving the shouting match between my sons (Lukas + Logan) about who gets to be first. As Logan makes his way to the hairdresser’s station, Madison squeals, jumps from my lap, and makes a b-line for the three wick candle burning on the table. With a quick “Don’t touch! Hot!” I scoop her up and head over towards Logan to see what he’s decided to do with his hair. If anyone has had the pleasure of dealing with children’s haircuts, you know exactly how this next part goes:

“No you can't have blue hair”

"Logan put that down and look in the mirror"

"Keep your head still”

"No I didn’t bring any snacks”

“If you stopped moving it wouldn’t take as long”

…All while bouncing a baby on my hip and keeping a watchful eye on Lukas who’s playing with my phone. He could be buying a trampoline from Spain as far as I know. (Yes I let my children play games on my phone when necessary. It keeps them from invading my personal space and making things awkward.)

With Logan’s hair done, Lukas hands off my cellphone and makes his way over to the chair. He is the type of six year old that knows what he wants. “A mowhawk” he chants “And spike it up!”

By this time Madison starts to get antsy; throwing herself from side to side, shouting “down", and then finally crying. I slowly sneak up to Logan and try to sweet talk him into letting Madison watch Elmo on my phone.

“No! Lukas got it longer than I did!” he whines, attracting unnecessary attention. Time to put on the sweet mom face and negotiate with my egocentric 5 year old.

"What If you can use my phone more when we get home?”

“NOOOOOO! I want it now!”

"I know you do sweetheart, but Madison REALLY would like a turn and you can use it as soon as we get home”

“But it’s my turn!!”

"How about we watch you play your game?”

“No! I don’t want you to watch!”

Shit. This isn’t working. Apparently my five year old boy doesn’t understand that his baby sister is going to explode if she doesn’t watch Elmo in the next 10 seconds. I decide to sit Madison on my lap and distract her with hairstyle magazines. Just as she settles she notices a little boy at the receptionists desk with his mother…hey wait a minute! He has a sucker!! …Damn... Off she goes again in search of her own sucker; when I say “In search of”, I mean walked right up to him, pointed in his face, and shouted “SUCKER”. My little detective.

When everyone was finished and looking great, my little detective made her way behind the front desk and gladly handed out a sucker to each of her brothers…and took two for herself.

J.K.