Some background: This winter has been so hard on Richie's poor skin. His eczema has really been acting up all winter long, and we've really been having a tough time making sure his skin is getting enough hydration. But the boy's poor scalp--no matter what we did, he still had a scaly scalp that he would scratch and scratch, which led to little cuts on his head from his fingernails. Rich's doctor gave us some steroid oil to help his scalp, but truthfully, I think all his hair was still getting in the way of the oil helping Rich's skin. So, basically we ended up just having a little oily-haired ragamuffin boy.
Proof of the oily-haired ragamuffin boy:
He basically looks like we've never bathed him ever.
So on Sunday, as I looked around at all of the cute little kids at church, with their nicely groomed hair, I became more and more embarrassed by Richie's oily and messy hair. It was simply getting too long to control, especially once we put that oil on his head (which may not have been as effective as we were hoping).
By the time church ended, I decided that this was it. We were going to cut his hair.
And so, we did.
Except, here's the thing. Tyler and I have limited hair cutting experience (Tyler does cut his own hair with clippers), and we have NO experience cutting a little kid's hair.
So poor Richie. Poor busy, impatient Richie. He WOULD NOT sit still. So while we began cutting his hair with scissors, Tyler and I quickly realized that we did not know what we were doing, and Richie's poor hair was looking worse and worse.
So out came the clippers. Which TERRIFIED Richie. He was so done by the time we pulled out the clippers, and the noise just pushed him over the edge. Richie sobbed and sobbed while we tried to fix our mistakes with the scissors.
Because Richie was having such a hard time, Tyler turned off the clippers, refusing to subject Richie to any more of what must have seemed like torture. "This will give him nightmares," Tyler reasoned. And I couldn't disagree. Richie was clearly being traumatized.
(These are actually re-enactment photos. Rich was still really sensitive for about 20 minutes after we finished cutting his hair.)
We really did try to make this adventure as painless as possible for Richie. But even our bathroom where we cut his hair shows the struggle that went down--maybe even better than I could describe:
But you know what, Rich's haircut really did not turn out so bad. If you don't look that closely. I mean, if you are really looking at him, you'll notice some pretty uneven patches (one in particular on the side of his head).
(After taking this picture, I trimmed that long section in front. So Rich really does look more normal now.)
And bonus: When I put the oil on his head last night, I felt like I was actually getting to his scalp. PLUS this morning, his hair looks gelled and styled, not oily and stringy.
AND even with the clearly unprofessional haircut this boy has been given, I still think he looks better than he did Sunday morning. And I'm less embarrassed by how his hair looks. Especially after Tyler styles Rich's hair. (For some reason, Tyler is just so much better at styling Rich's hair. It really really looks good once he's finished with it.) I'll take a picture later tonight to show you what I mean.
The moral of the story: Next time, I'll probably just take Rich to a barber.
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