Someday I imagine Owen twisting his head away from me, pleading me to stop running my fingers through his hair. But he can’t talk yet. And he doesn’t twist yet. And I love his hair. (Even when sticky with cereal bar in it.) It’s thick. And shiny. And there’s now enough of it that if you put him to bed too soon after a bath, he wakes up with parts of it sticking up and out and away. I realize that, to strangers, this simply looks like bad parenting. (Doesn’t that mother own a brush?) But I find it terribly endearing.
People started saying, “Have you cut his hair?” “His hair is so long!” “He needs a haircut.” (Andy, especially.) I ignored them. In part, because I loved his hair the way that it was. Shorter meant less material to run my fingers through. But also, in part, because it took so long for Sophie to grow her hair. I wasn’t used to a baby of mine needing a haircut so early, so young (and yet, he’s 1!).
Nicholena, who cuts my hair—and Sophie’s hair—carefully trimmed Owen’s shiny hairs as he sat on Andy’s lap. I took one-handed pictures, while trying to calm a tearful James in my other arm and convince Sophie that she didn’t have to go potty just yet (it was a different experience from Sophie’s first haircut).
He was so good. And when finished, he looked so much … older. More little boy. Less baby. But he’s not twisting away. Yet.
“Why don’t you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum.” —P. G. Wodehouse