Hair Cuts and Other Small Matters

Today I gave Sons#3 and #5 hair cuts. I’ve given up offering to pay for them to have haircuts at the local stylist. The last time I did that was for their brother’s wedding and they came home and asked me to ‘fix’ what the stylist had done. It seems that when it comes to haircuts they have particular needs and want it to be ‘just right’.

I cannot even begin to imagine the number of haircuts I’ve given over the years. Some days I would cut the hair of all five sons in one session. Afterwards on the floor would be blonde and red hair, black and brown hair, straight hair, and curly hair all mixed together. And each head of hair was unique just as each of our sons are unique.

Son#1’s hair has a slight natural curl that hides any imperfections in the haircutting technique. An extremely useful characteristic in a first child when mama is still learning the art!

Son#2’s individual hair strands are quite fine. Cutting his hair is a pleasure – the scissors smoothly cut through each strand without resistance. As a young child Son#2 had quite a pronounced red streak at the back of his head that the magpies were seriously attracted to. Come summer, he had to be careful to wear a hat otherwise the birds would be swooping down on him and trying to remove the red hairs! They were successful on more than one occasion and once even drew blood where they pecked his scalp!

Son#3’s hair is super-thick. He was born with a head-ful of black thick hair and still has it! In fact when he was just a few days old he became jaundiced and that plus his colouring led my father to think that we’d been given the wrong baby in the hospital! Cutting his hair when he was a child was a nightmare. He would scream and cry and insist that I was hurting him. When we first moved to New Zealand we lived with my in-laws for a few months and the time came when I needed to cut Son#3’s hair. I went off down to the back of the garden so as not to make a mess inside, but when it was over and we returned to the house my MIL asked me what I’d been doing to my son as she could hear his screams and it had sounded as if someone had been trying to murder him. No, just cutting his hair.

Son#4 also has hair strands that are quite fine (but plenty of them) and cutting his hair would have been easy apart from the fact that he had stick straight hair as a child and it took a lot of effort to make sure it was even (every cut with the scissors was so obvious). In recent years it’s become thicker and wavier and a lot easier to cut. When we lived with my in-laws my FIL cut Son#4’s hair one day when I was out. Oh what a disaster that turned out to be! My FIL had had lots of practice cutting the hair of his own five sons when they were growing up (and of his 3 daughters until they decided long hair was preferable to dad’s haircuts!) but I don’t think anything had prepared him for Son#4’s hair! The good thing about hair though is that it grows, and grow it did. And at that time Son#4 was still not at school and was actually quite proud that his grandpa had cut his hair – so no harm done.

Son#5 is another one with thick hair although not as hard to cut as Son#3’s (which feels more like sawing than cutting). Like Son#3 he has two blonde sections at either temple. It used to be quite a contrast on Son#3 who has dark hair (some people pay lots of money for the same effect). Son#3’s blonde streaks have disappeared but Son#5 has retained his and they present a unique hair cutting dilemma in that the hair there grows more thinly than elsewhere on his head. If these sections are cut the same as the rest of his hair he ends up looking as if he’s got two bald spots! Once at school (a Christian school with strict dress codes) Son#5 was in trouble from the principal for dying his hair until a teacher (and friend) told the principal that Son#5 had always had these lighter blonde streaks and that they were totally natural!

Well enough about hair, and onto another natural fibre. Wool. The catalogue I ordered a few days ago arrived today and looking at the names of the yarns I’m reminded of Joseph’s Technicolour Dreamcoat: red, navy, sky, sunflower, denim, red haze, avocado, amethyst, holly, periwinkle, peony rose, olive, raspberry, merlot, aqua, ballet, terracotta, burnt orange, emerald, cyclamen, horizon, coral, donkey, carnation, black, and white. And that’s just in 8ply. There’s also a merino/possum blend that is meant to be extremely soft and warm. Less colour choices but still some pretty sounding names: berry, amethyst, navy, jewel, berry, lipstick, gooseberry, cobalt, black and natural. Oh how to choose!

Talking about choices, DH and I went into town today and bought some potting mix and pots for my new roses. We looked at terracotta pots and ceramic pots but ended up choosing plastic pots that look like stone. They’ll be lighter to move than the clay pots and won’t chip or break as easily. Hopefully we’ll get the roses in them soon (notice I said ‘we’ not ‘I’ – I’m really hoping to enlist the help of one or more sons in this project).

At the moment DH is changing the tap (faucet) fittings in the bathroom. The taps are only a few years old but all are breaking and leaking. Some have only been in use for six or so months so it’s not as if wear and tear can be blamed. We suspect a manufacturing fault but are having a hard time convincing the supplier. We’ve bought new ones and will be keeping a close eye on them to see how they perform.

By the way, the bone comb I bought has split. I could feel it pulling my hair but thought I was just being paranoid. When I examined it closely I noticed that two of the teeth were peeling apart and hair and dust were getting caught. I contacted the supplier and she offered to send me a new comb but I'm reluctant to try this comb again so instead she's going to send me another Mason Pearson comb.

And finally, it’s snowing where Son#2 is. Exciting for him as he’s never lived anywhere where it snows before (he sent through the above photo). No snow for us though. Just lots of rain and some hail. Brrrrrr!