Quarantine Cut

After looking at Easter photos I realized that Cyrus’ hair was so long you could barely see his piercing blue eyes. It was beyond time for a haircut, but all the shops remained closed due to the times we're living in. 

I asked my husband if he could cut Cyrus’ – an extremely active 1 ½ year old – hair, because I certainly wasn’t doing it. 

Do you remember a time when you came to the realization you weren’t talented in an area? I remember clearly a day that I decided to trim my Barbie styling head’s hair. Barbie styling heads were a big deal in the late 80’s. They were simply the large head and shoulders of a Barbie that you could apply make-up to and style the hair. It was very basic training for your first homecoming dance. 

With purple Fiskars in hand, I began the trim on one side, and slowly twirled the head around while I snipped precisely, from ear to ear. When I finally got around the entire head, I spun her around to learn that the cut ended in a perfect spiral. In fact, the left side of her hair was down past the chin, and by the time I got done, the right side of the head had hair above the ear. 

It was then that I knew: I wasn’t cut out to cut hair.

Fast forward thirty years and my husband was plugging in clippers and snapping on guards in our kitchen. My blood pressure was rising.

I sat Cyrus on my lap and wrapped a towel around him like a cape, then kissed his cheek. The clippers began buzzing and he jolted. But dad talked to him throughout the process and he became completely calm. He giggled when Cody went around the ears. 

White hair began falling onto the towel and he fought to get his arms out. He grabbed a handful and studied it like snow. 

I grabbed a handful and set it aside. That handful now rests in my cedar chest in an envelope, “Cyrus’ Quarantine Cut 2020”. If you come to his graduation open house in 17 years, you’ll probably see it on the display table. 

I have a damn hard time letting go.

Then, the mood suddenly changed when Cody began dropping hints about how badly he, too, needed a haircut. The hints were unnecessary; I’d been living in the same house with him 24/7 for 45 days. 

I told him the Barbie styling head story and he either didn’t care or didn’t listen, because by the time I wrapped it up, he was sitting in the chair with a towel wrapped around himself like a cape. 

Two minutes, many verbal complaints and an acre of dark hair on my kitchen floor later I told him:

“Listen, pal. I can’t do a fade. I can’t blend. I can only take little bits off a time and hopefully not an ear.”

“OK,” he replied. “Well, my girl in town can do all of it. Just try.”

“Ok, well, your girl in town went to school for this. She has a license to run these clippers. I only have a license to drive a car,” a snipped back.

“Daddy. Who is your girl in town?” asked Caroline. 

The three-year-old took the words right out of my mouth. 

It took twenty minutes and four trips to the bathroom mirror for Cody to agree that we could end the charade. 

He was somewhat content with his fresh quarantine cut, 

the kids were covered in dark hair from playing on the kitchen floor and 

I was hiding a dirty little secret: a 1” x 1” patch I shaved bare behind his left ear.

You can keep a secret, right??