Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Family Tradition

There’s a custom in my family where the boys don’t get their haircut until the age of three, that’s years. My son James will be turning three this month, which means that we can say bye bye to his beautiful dirty blonde locks. We will invite all our friends and family and have a little party at our house where everyone will be able to take a snip. I’m sure that this sounds a little strange to all of you, it is, but you just don’t mess with family tradition.
Anyway, James is looking forward to his haircut so that he can look more like daddy. I on the other hand love his long hair and wish that he could keep it. He looks like a surfer dude. Having his hair cut will certainly make things easier, like washing his hair, brushing his hair, dealing with knots, and the overwhelming duty of correcting people when they tell me that she is so cute. That last one is frustrating. I find myself calling him “boy” for clarity when ever we go out. Hey boy lets go on the slide, boy come over here, boy it’s time to go home, boy boy boy, HE’S A BOY! We dress him like a boy, his demeanor is all boy, and his voice is BOY. So I wonder what people are thinking when they see my little girl, I mean BOY dressed in BOY JEANS, BOY SHIRTS, and BOY SHOES. They’re probably thinking that I don’t have a son and that I’m compensating by dressing up my daughter as a boy. I’m sorry; he’s a great looking boy, but woof in the girl department.

So why do I bring up this story. Well, I was at the park with James on Labor Day and we were on the big blue slide, he was ready to come down when another kid was trying to walk up the slide. The kid’s father said wait, let her (my son) come down first. I corrected him and he apologized, I said it happens all the time. THEN, I said your son looks to be about my son’s age, how old is he? He said that his DAUGHTER was three. What an awkward moment of silence.

What Goes Around Comes Around.

2 comments:

Kim Ayres said...

We had to cut my son Rogan's hair just after he turned 3. Like your experience, everyone thought he was a lovely wee girl. Maybe we should have cut it earlier, but his golden locks were stunning. However, looking after it was a nightmare. He had a major habit of leaning over dirty puddles and pools of mud and his hair would just sloosh about in it.

When Meg had to go into hospital to have her heart operation, we knew that Maggie was going to be staying there with her for 2 weeks. At the time I was still in the early stages of trying to get my business up and running and had three step children to look after too. We reluctantly decided that my life would be made fractionaly easier if I didn't have to worry about Rogan's hair, so out came the clippers.

3 months later, when I was tidying up his hair with the clippers I was overwhelmed with a sense of how much easier short hair was to cope with, so called my wife to sort out mine. At this point, my hair was so long I could almost sit on it. For a few days afterwards my head kept lolling forwards because I didn't have the counterweight of all the hair on the back anymore!

But I love your idea of having a party to cut the hair - serious rites of passage stuff (even more so than setting the timer on the VCR)!

BStrong said...

Yeah, ketchup, baked beans, oatmeal, they all do wonders for the hair. I think my family just likes to throw parties and that's why we have all this stuff. Short hair is really the way to go.

Thanks for the comments.
B.