Treacherous Mirages

Our weather has been oscillating between gorgeous fall-like sweater weather, and treacherous icky winter storms.

Early Saturday morning we had a snow storm. I was scheduled to take a teaching test that morning, and was a bit bummed that it was being rescheduled. But I got excited about the prospect of playing in the snow with Jackson. The last time it had snowed (2 weeks ago), it was evening and nearly dark out, so Jackson and I didn't get to really enjoy it. But this time, we put on all our gear and headed out to play.

My excitement for enjoying the snow with my son was crushed after our first step outside. It was almost like a practical joke. It looked like lovely packable snow, and one step onto the white revealed a thin sheet of ice covering the 1 inch of snowflakes, mocking any desire for frolic and play. Our "playing" consisted of walking around for an hour, trying not to slip. I was highly disappointed, but Jackson didn't care and had enough fun to throw a little fit when we had to go inside.



We created our own storm yesterday inside the house that had a very similar effect. It required all events to be canceled and produced somewhat of a funny trick on the eyes.

Jackson's been due for a haircut for a couple weeks, and I decided yesterday was the day. Our previous experiences have been quite tame and lovely, and I had great visions of a calm movie watching toddler letting his mother sweetly trim his hair so he looked a little more clean cut. Mmmm... not so much the experience.

Mark's response was: did you really have to cut it yesterday? Here is Jackson's hair at the beginning of this month, so imagine it a centimeter longer. It was just to the point of bad bed head, and the mushroom look--where the hair gently curls toward the head, looking rather silly.


(These were taken on one of the amazing fall-like days)


It was obviously not a must-get-done task, but more like something that would be nice. It started out innocent, but after a battle to get Jackson to stay in the right chair and keep the hair shield on, the experience moved from a sweet trim to a forced buzz. Since it was going so well, I decided to use a #2 on the buzzer (which is pretty short), so I wouldn't have to cut the hair again for a while. After a minute, and seeing large bald patches, I switched to a #5 (much longer) and held Jackson's head in place. Though it looked pretty bad, I knew it would look worse only half cut. Pretty much he rebelled the rest of the day with a really short, late nap, and tears for most of the evening.

I wish I had great pictures of what happened, but Jackson had a hard time sitting still for the post-haircut shoot. From the front, he looks fine, just a bit bald.



From the back and side he pretty much looks like an Eastern European orphan. It's the poorly buzzed square head that has an aura of homely-ness. Some parts are a bit too short, other parts didn't really get trimmed. Similar to the snow, the front shows a mirage of a talented mother and sweet well behaved little boy. The back reveals the great fight it was to get that much hair cut, and begs for a new trim to fix all the mistakes.

But like the snow again, we'll enjoy the fact that he doesn't seem to care... at least today.