Hydrogen,
Oxygen and Peroxide, what does this combination equal? Are you puzzled? That’s
exactly how I felt about child rearing when I had my first son. Puzzled – like I
was experimenting. Leafing through an old photo album led to memories of when
my sons were younger. If you don’t have kids yet, I recommend planning for two;
the first one will be an experiment.
My
collection of books included – What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and
What to Expect, the Toddler Years. Cutting your child’s hair was
not one of the chapters. When my son needed his first haircut, off we went to
the barber shop. Floppy four-inch braids were scattered around his head.
The leather barber chair looked like it was
swallowing my three-year-old son’s body. He hunched his shoulders and curled
his body inward at the buzz of the clippers. When the barber was done, my son
held a lone braid in his hand and said, “hair broke.” My son and I both
survived that first haircut, but a few years later wasn’t as successful.
We were
visiting Granny for the day and my sone needed a haircut. In her not so wee
voice Granny said, “We can go to the barbershop up the street.”
At the
barbershop up the street my son hopped onto the barber’s chair unaware
of what awaited him. Clippers buzzed, hair dropped to the floor, more hair then
we realized, disappeared. We paid the barber, gave a tip and went on our merry
way. Until…
Upon closer
inspection of my sons’ new look, a discovery was made. My lip twitched, my
eyebrows raised, and I bellowed, “Ma, half his eyebrow is gone.”
As sure as
the sky is Blue, my son’s eyebrow was shaved in half. And I gave the guy a tip
for doing it. The first child is an experiment.
When describing
a task to you, have you ever had someone say, “it’s as easy as riding a bike?”
Riding a bike is not always easy. I remember as though it were yesterday, the
first time my son maneuvered his bike without training wheels. I held the back
of the bike seat for a few feet as he rode, then let go, sending him into a
gentle glide.
He kept
gliding… past two houses, then down a neighbors’ driveway and out into the
street. I heard faint screams as I looked in my sons’ direction. I transformed
into Usain Bolt as I finished a 50-yard dash in three seconds. I rescued my son
from the mean streets of the subdivision before he crashed into anything.
By the time
the second child comes along you become a little more mellow. Son number two
came running in the house one day after playing baseball with friends. He had
tripped and hit his tooth on something. There was blood all over his white
t-shirt, I panicked and screamed, “Oh my goodness, get in the bathroom right
now…and wash that blood off your shirt or that stain will never come out.”
What is one funny
reflection from when your child was younger or when you were a child?
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