Look, it might night sound like much, or something that is even very important, but it’s certainly the most stressful thing for us all as a family during this most recent Level 5 lockdown period here in Ireland. As I’ve mentioned before our little boy, who is 5 by the way, is Autistic, he’s also very strong willed, strong and stubborn. One thing that he hates above all else so far in life is getting a hair cut, he doesn’t like people messing around his ears too much and the buzzing noise of a hair trimmer freaks him out.
Unfortunately during this form of lockdown it’s not possible to get a visit from his hairdresser, who is brilliant, but still struggles a lot to get any sort of shape to his hair before he completely loses the plot. It is what it is, but I hate the distress it causes him, his poor little heart rate goes through the roof (and to be honest so does mine, although he had relaxed a little over time and she can at least get a job done on it without us having to hold him still) do as you can imagine, that causes my heart rate to elevate quite rapidly and higher than a fast 10KM walk, which can’t be good for either of us. I know mammy feels the same, so a simple thing of cutting hair causes so much stress for the 3 of us, it’s crazy.
Anyway, it’s been coming, his hair was growing longer and longer, and the fringe was annoying him most getting in his eyes, but generally all too long for him and bugging him, so you can’t put it off indefinitely and with the lockdown period set to be extended Today was the day. We have managed to do it ourselves once, wasn’t great, but not too embarrassing to be out in. His preschool reopens tomorrow finally, so decided to give it another shot but that may have been a mistake.
We have a special children’s hair clippers, that’s quieter than most, so as not to affect children that don’t like noise around their heads, but still he hates it, and because he hasn’t been having regular cuts – and obviously as we don’t know what we are doing – it’s a big struggle from second number one. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m well used to using clippers, have been cutting my own hair for nearly 20 years with one, but that’s so not the same as trying to cut someone else’s hair, someone that’s wriggling, moving constantly, getting upset and just doesn’t want to do it. So starting off, I was the one calming him down while his mother tried to cut, but she has no experience at all with clippers and wasn’t comfortable doing the job, so I took over and asked for guidance, as I was cutting backwards effectively. The job just has to be done quickly, and get the main sections as complete as you can, so for this one, the fringe had to come up quite a bit. Also different than doing my own as I use a No.1 guite, effectively just the blade, and today we were using a 12, so not scalping him. Tapering I don’t do, trying to do it when the subjects head is bobbing around trying to get away from you is a million times worse, poor little guy.
It sure wasn’t looking Salon styled, no it certainly wasn’t. But needs must. in reality I was getting as stressed as he was, and that’s not good for someone with heart issues, his mother thankfully doesn’t have those issues, but just as stressed, and she was supposed to be guiding me, but that’s hard to do when you are hoping to get him not to have his ear cut off, we don’t need a Van Gough without the Art 🙂 So to de-stress it may be another session on the Treadmill tonight, we will see
So I tried to get as much of the bulk off as possible, tidy it up a little, bring the fringe back up so it wasn’t near his eyes (if only it had been straight) and the most difficult, get the bits around the ears. I’d give that bit a 6 out of 10, and the end result in how it actually looks, well more like a 3 maybe. I don’t think people have any idea, and I do know so many children that hate the idea of haircuts, and get upset when placed in the situation, but multiply that when the child has Autism and is very strong on top of it. hey it’s done for another couple of months (even if it will start looking even worse in a couple of weeks – you have to laugh. The funny thing is that he calms down quicker afterwards than I do, what’s that all about 🙂 we will try and sort out a couple of little bits when he falls asleep tonight, otherwise he’ll be in the lockdown haircuts of shame…… poor little guy, it’s as bad as the old days where mothers put bowls over kids heads and trimmed around them.
In the battle of man vs hair, this time hair and little boy definitely won….. he was back happy and laughing watching Blaze and the Monster Machines and we were both in need of either a lay down or a large drink. Until the next battle… he may be a little embarrassed about the hair, but come on, covering your head with a bear is not the long term solution 🙂
