The Haircut

I am visiting my daughter in Iowa for a few days so I had the opportunity to share a family dinner with her in-laws.  My daughter has a lot to live up to, if today's dinner was any example.  Her mother-in-law is a gracious hostess and a wonderful cook.  Today's dinner was grilled rib-eye steaks, baked potatoes, broccoli with cheese sauce, grilled squash, peppers, onions,and mushrooms, corn (in Iowa corn is pretty special, trust me), rolls with homemade strawberry jam  and homemade peach pie. My son-in-law's older sister and her husband were there for the week-end to attend a family wedding, so the conversation was filled with laughter and stories.

After dinner Mary brought in a small box and handed it to my daughter.  She looked inside and started laughing.  Soon everyone had joined in.  Mystified I looked in the box and remained mystified.  Inside were loops of soft blond curls, some short and some measuring 10-12 inches long.  It seems that Mary had been keeping her youngest son's daughters while he helped with the planting.  The visiting children and grandkids usually stay in the finished basement rooms.   The basement is rather flexible with a full kitchen, a large den with a couch,chairs, pool table and a bed and another bedroom.  It also has the small home beauty parlor that Mary used before she quit being a beautician and started work at the local bank.  She still uses this space to give all the family haircuts.

The two little girls had gone to the basement to play and naturally decided to play beautician.  The older girl, aged 6, decided to fix the younger girl's (age 4) hair.  She managed to at least get it wet in the shampoo bowl, although no one is sure if she actually used shampoo.  I'm amazed she didn't paint the room with water using the spray nozzle, and she may have. Then she decided to give her a haircut.  Realizing that everyone wouldn't appreciate her efforts, she then pulled the remaining hair back in a pony tail.  The little girl is gifted with thick, curly hair so Mary, who was busy preparing dinner for the guys, didn't notice anything different.

The parents arrived to take their two sleepy girls back home and quickly bundled them into their car seats for the hour drive to Des Moines.  Arriving home they carried the sleeping girls into the house and put them to bed.  The next morning the mom went in to get them up and saw her youngest for the first time in the bright light.  It evidently wasn't a Hallmark moment.  The report was that she had half a mullet. It seems the haircut was mostly in the center of the back of her head. I can only imagine her horror to see her little girl with half a head of curls. 

It seems that nearly every one of the grandchildren had done this at some time or another, which is what brought on the giggles and laughter.  As one of the older grandchildren had wailed when she had cut her little brother's hair, "It won't stay that way will it!?"  It will grow out, but the mother probably won't recover for a while.

Which is also why my daughter spent an hour drilling into her girls that this was a really, really bad thing to do.  Probably won't work.

It made me feel better to realize I wasn't the only grandparent that had grandchildren that managed to do the most unbelievable things with me standing right there.