Shaving without Scaring the Kids
A major change to your hair, head or facial, is one of the fastest, most dramatic alterations to the way you look. Especially when you’ve had it a certain way for a long time and then toss a high-yield grenade of change at it. It can be very startling for others, especially your kids.
So, while Lucas was still a bun in Lizzie’s almost fully swollen oven, I decided I should take the opportunity and shave off my beard. Just ’cause. But I devised a plan. I would have Max and Cody shave my beard! “Why,” you ask? Ahhhh, read on…
Sweet Nightmares Are Made of This
For my mom, thanks to us kids, Annie Lennox’s hairdo (above) turned out to be a massive hairdon’t.When I was about 10, my dad got me and my brother and sister together (Uh oh), saying that Mom had gotten her hair done and was very very unhappy with it. (What!?! You gotta be kiddin’ me! Crazy girls!) He cautioned us to be upbeat and not say anything mean. (What’re we pure evil?) Then Mom walked through the front door…
My jaw dropped and I probably said something unintentionally mean and not-upbeat. My sister screamed and started crying. Mom’s tears exploded from already red eyes and she ran to their bedroom, locking herself in. My Dad later explained that in a fit of spontaneity and love for the musical performer, she’d asked the hairdresser to turn her below-the-shoulders, 80’s cloud of curls into Annie Lennox’s cropped and fiery hairdo.
I was taught an early life lesson about mind-altering hair changes.
Operation: Weed Whacker
When you shave your beard, the startled “whoa-ho!” looks of amazement or poorly veiled horror are amusing. These are the expressions I imagine the Deatheaters wore behind their masks, in the Harry Potter film when Voldemort was resurrected. I picture their wide eyes and hear them thinking, “Uhhhhh… Where the f##k is his nose?” But when it’s your kids, the question on their face seems to be, “Who the Hell are you, and what have you done with my dad!?!”
So, two years ago, I knew Cody and Max would be a little weirded out about it, so I had the idea it’d be less freaky for them if I had THEM do it! Plus, it would be fun, with a bonus chance of being oddly educational. Guy’ducational. I put tape on my sideburns so they didn’t get all abstract art on the sides of my head. Cody’s a lefty so he got the left, and Max got the right side.
2009: Having fun with it, along the way we wound up with a sort of Wolverine meets Wyatt Earp.
Soooooo… I’m at it again!
That was two years ago. Now my beard is positively out of control, like a bear with a rapid-shedding condition wiped its ass on my face. I call it The Crazy Woodsman. I let it grow for Movember. You see, I was supposed to shave bare (my FACE) and grow out a mustache through November, like Charlie has, but I didn’t want to freak out the kids. Plus, I’m cheating. There’s no way I’m fighting fair when it comes to helping to fight Cancer, so now I’m going to lose the beard and save the stache. And this time, it’s for the good of Mankind!
Stay tuned for next week’s
MOVEMBER WRAP-UP &
CRAZY MUSTACHE REVEALS!
the muskrat says: 
Nicole in Portland 
Stephanie K. 
Neil 
Turtle-Dove 
