This week we tried and failed to get Harrison a haircut. We had let it go to a point where Lis and I would look at each other and say ‘something has to be done about that mop.’ His hair would bounce up and down when he ran it was that long and thick – it was time for a haircut.
We had a plan of attack. We would bribe him with a chocolate lolly and the promise of seeing the puppies in the pet store window, and get this thankless task done. I was positive when we got there. The DVD player was brought out and there was a dinosaur movie on. This was great – he is a big fan of dinosaurs and he happily hopped up onto the chair.
Everything was going smoothly, this was going to be a belter. We had given him a bickie to eat as well to take his mind off anything that would be going on around him, and we were ready. The clippers started up, approached his head and boom, all hell broke loose.
Big H pulled away, a look that can only be described as a mixture of fear, confusion and disgust came across his face – he was not having it. No matter what we tried, the crying got worse. The chocolate bribe came out very early. He was interested, he wanted it and we got a bit of the back of his hair done, a small victory. Harrison soon got wind of our tricks to distract him and pulled away again crying.
By this point everyone else in the hairdressers and I am sure passers-by were wondering what kind of evil torture we were inflicting on our son. Well stuff you and you come and help then! Plan B went into motion. I sat on the chair with him on my lap. He calmed for a second, one side of the head got done. How dare they trick me again thought H Boss, I will respond with lots of movement and crying. He didn’t like the hair on his face so started rubbing his face and blowing raspberries to get it off. This obviously made it worse which had a knock-on effect that was exactly what you were thinking it was.
Lis and I knew this wasn’t going to get done, but we couldn’t leave the hair how it was. We needed to get the other side done. One final point at the dinosaur film, one desperate bribe of chocolate lolly and eventually having to hold him still for a minute led to us getting the minimum requirement and getting the hell out of there – not doing that again for a long time!
We are about to embark on our first long car journey down to Canberra to see friends. Hopefully he will sleep a bit of it but the longest he has been in a car is about 2 hours, this will probably double it. I am sure it will be fine but there is still that trepidation of how he is going to go, oh well we won’t know until we do it. Watch this space to find out. Happy fathering.