The Haircut

I’m not ashamed to admit that sometimes, alone for a while with two kids, I go a bit stir crazy. It usually happens on the weekends when Will is working down in London and I’m at a bit of a loose end; we really miss him when he’s not around for lazy Saturdays with jigsaws and boozy afternoons at the rugby club. And OK, I miss that he’s not there for a lie-in.

The last weekend he worked was especially hard. I have no idea why: I felt restless, like I needed to get stuff done. The house was spotless, the fridge was full. There was nothing to do locally in the pouring rain and the kids were going a wee bit crazy. I tried to do some gardening (my mum has given me some bulbs which I planned to bury in soil and hope for the best) but I couldn’t find a trowel or fork. It wasn’t warm enough to paint the kitchen table so I decided to get on top of another project I’ve been meaning to do for weeks. Cut Elfie’s hair.

Really, how hard could it be to cut the hair of a two year old who wouldn’t hold still to have her feet measured and who counts her favourite activities as jumping, dancing and wobbling?

Erm, yeah.

It was hard. I started cutting and cutting and cutting and her hair just got more and more wonky. And as it got more wonky I had to cut some more to even it out until I’d hacked about three inches off and I just COULD NOT work out how to make it look good. I burst into (quiet) tears and called my hairdresser. Luckily he could squeeze her in a couple of hours later and very gracefully didn’t laugh or tell me off for even thinking about cutting her hair myself.

I really should have learned more during the great DIY fringe of 2001 episode.

Elfie loves her new hair. She thinks she looks like a grown up (she does, WEEP) and every time she catches herself in the mirror she says “ooh, love my hair cut mummy”. Me? I was altogether more distressed by the whole experience and spent 24 hours wistfully looking at pictures of her with longer locks. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that although her new do is shorter than I would have liked, her head of wispy hippy hair needed sorting out. And I definitely have not sniffed that lock of hair I saved from the hair cutting carnage. Nope, not at all.

My girl’s growing up…

Voting for the BiB Awards has opened!! As I totally missed the MADs I am shifting my alliance and doing some straight up begging for votes. Last year I was a finalist in the ‘Food’ category and I won (and drank) a bottle of Prosecco so getting there again would be amazing. There are some new categories this year and I’d be honoured to be nominated for any of them, though maybe you could consider me for the ‘Family’, ‘Writer’, or ‘Lifestyle’ categories? You can vote here… thanks in advance!