Home Haircut

One of my biggest fears in coming to Nigeria to serve a mission has been "WHAT TO DO WITH MY HAIR!" I just don't have the same kind of hair as the neighborhood girls, and I don't want to have to travel all the way to Victoria Island where there is a small population of Ex-Pats (whites over here working for the oil companies).

I have a big hang-up about home haircuts. That is mainly due to the fact that my father was a barber. He sometimes mentioned when he had to "straighten out" a messed up home job. He was my stylist until I was old enough to know the difference between a Barber and a Beautician. I'm not saying that I always looked adorable. I have some pictures with funny looking "do's" when I was little. I had at least one fuzzy Toni home perm.

I never cut my own sons hair. I always had it done professionally. I did cut Kurt's hair when we were first married, but that didn't last very long. I did cut the girls bangs and trimmed off the bottom of their hair when they wore it long.

I remember the 2 times that the kids cut their own hair. The first was Heidi when she was only 2 years old. She had long hair for her age. It was past her shoulders and I could fix it into pigtails or braids. One day she was wearing her hair down. She was outside playing and had some little paper scissors with the rounded ends. I don't know if I was naive enough to think she wouldn't cut her own hair or didn't know that she had the scissors. When she came in her hair was all messy looking on her right side. As I started to brush it, out came sections of hair. Being right-handed, she only cut one side. I managed to style it so that it could grow out, and she never looked too weird. The second time was when the kids were home with a babysitter. Kurt Jr. (age 3)took the sitter's scissors out of her bag and proceeded to cut his own hair clear to the scalp. He also decided to whack on Heidi's hair pretty seriously. Needless to say, the babysitter was horrified. I thought it was quite comical. I knew it would grow back so it was "no big deal". After Heidi's hair grew out a little, my beautician gave her a short haircut. She looked so cute that I never grew her hair out long again.

Today it was time for my first home haircut by a non-professional(KURT!) I knew I could trust him for several reasons:
1. He loves me
2. He is not a prankster like my next-door neighbor
3. He wouldn't want to listen to me whine and cry about my hair
4. He always tries to do his best and always seems to do a good job
5. He's stuck looking at me 24/7 since I am his companion

As you can see from the photo, it turned out OK. What a relief. I even smiled for the picture. Maybe I'll be able to stay here in Nigeria for 18 months and not look like a total freak. I sure hope so.