Haircut
I gave myself a haircut today, Bobo. It’s the second one since you passed. Which, in itself, made me well up. That means you’ve been gone long enough for me to have had to cut my hair twice. And it still hurts this bad. What it does make me think about is all the haircuts I gave you. We went to the kids haircutting spot twice. The first time was okay, but you didn’t like it much. The second time you really hated it and the poor girl doing your haircut really looked stressed out. So we decided to skip the salon and do them at home.
Your haircuts evolved. They started with me and an “autistic friendly” pair of electric clippers and a set of scissors for the top of your head. I watched some YouTube videos of parents cutting hair, trying to get a grip on how to do it with the least possible chance to mess it up. What they didn’t show in the videos were children like yourself who hated the process and would move and dip and dodge constantly while the person cutting the hair (me) was dipping and dodging also to try to make it somewhat even. What resulted was a very poorly executed attempt to replicate a salon cut. Because you’d use your hands to swat at me while I tried to zip in and out and do my work, I stationed your mom at your feet to hold your hands. You didn’t like that much either. One morning I hauled your brother in to do the hand holding. We turned on the TV to your favorite show, which, at the time was TEC the tractor, I believe. We then gave you an iPad and a sucker. What then followed was a crying, sticky mess as you tried to outdo the TV volume. Because of the crying with the sucker, the trimmed hair was stuck everywhere. To the iPad, to you, to me, to Jaxson. All of us came out irritated and sticky. It was rough.
This then lead to me buying better clippers. The “autistic friendly” clippers didn’t cut worth a damn. So they weren’t very “amateur haircutter friendly”. And I realized pretty quick that you wouldn’t like it no matter what, so if I could get in and out as fast as possible that would be the key. Jaxson helped on many occasions, still holding your hands so you couldn’t swing at me. I eventually ditched the scissors and just gave you the military cut. #1 all over. With good clippers, I could be done much faster and it was almost always even. I will say there were times where I missed a couple hairs and had to go back the next day and clip off the danglers with a pair of scissors.
Eventually, we gave you jelly beans (since you loved those) and that seemed to allow for me to get a pretty good head shave. Your mom helped a little here and then and eventually bailed out. So, it was me and you, Bobo. Shaving your head and spending time together. It’s funny how I come back to these things. That at the time gave me anxiety, and now I looked fondly back on. Like it was time that we had together. Just Bobo and Dad, having a haircut. It was hit and miss how agreeable you’d be. But we’d muddle though. And it was good. You’d get up from the booster chair (I bought one of those chairs you see at the restaurants for toddlers) and run your hand across your buzzed noggin. You’d look at me, and then wander off, your work being done.
And so, when it’s time, for now on, I will be breaking out the clippers and giving myself the “Bobo cut”. Each and every time remembering our time together, you in your booster, and me with the clippers, telling you how good you are for sitting so still and not realizing that I wouldn’t be doing this for you until the end of my days.