The Tiny Barber of Bearwood

Recently, I got my hair cut. When I got home, I decided the bangs needed to be a bit shorter. I pulled out my trusty home hair cutting scissors and got to work while Aidan and Leo busied themselves playing in the water table in the bathtub. I didn't realize, at the time, that I was being carefully scrutinized as I concentrated hard on not butchering my own hair (as I have occasionally done in the past with such attempts at home grooming.) We were all pretty hungry, so once I dried the kids off and left them to meet me downstairs for a snack, I headed to the kitchen. Aidan came down a short while later, and when Leo did not surface for many minutes, I sent Aidan back upstairs to see what he was doing.

Calmly, Aidan walked back into the kitchen - no running, pounding of feet on the stairs, loud exclamations from the hallway to give me a heads up - and didn't say anything. I said, "Aidan, what is Leo doing? Why isn't he coming down?" Serenely, matter-of-factly, uniterestedly, Aidan replied, "Well, Leo is giving himself a haircut." "WHAT?" came my panicked response. I tore up the stairs, thinking to myself, those scissors are so sharp! what if he pokes his eye out? what about that beautiful hair that is so crazy and lovely? why on EARTH is he cutting his hair? why is Aidan so calm? I LOVE THAT HAIR OF HIS!!!!! I tore into the bathroom and there was Leo, perched upon the lid of the toilet with the scissors deeply embedded in his hair. His face was covered in long strands. Six chunks of long hair lay on his shoulders, chest, and back. His pants were covered with fine strands. First, I wanted to laugh. Then I nearly cried. Finally, I contemplated grabbing the camera, but decided that the positive attention of the photograph would reinforce something that I most definitely did not want repeated. I settled on a firm scolding and reprimand, telling Leo it was danger, only Mommy or Daddy or a hairstylist could cut his hair. Looking up at me with large, puppy dog eyes, he had only one thing to say: Why? Somehow knowing how to stretch that short, one-syllable word into two syllables, in a tone that implied that I had just flung his lovey out the window or some other such horror, in a way that challenged the very idea that what he had done to his hair was nothing short of a masterpiece.

And so we have introduced a new style to our Tiny Barber, and it is the comb over.