Homemade Haircut

I have a new friend named Emily. We met through the moms' club I joined a couple of months ago. She and I just clicked - we both use cloth diapers, are into natural birth, and have a similar world view. I find her insanely interesting and think she should be a character in a novel. Her house is lovely because it's lived in and imperfect, and also because art covers the walls and there's a swing hanging from a ceiling beam in her living room. And I adore her parenting style, which I like to call "free range." This is not a mom who obsesses about germs and milestones and all that other helicopter-y type stuff (even though her first daughter was a preemie born at 25 weeks). This is a mom who says "oh well" when she sees her youngest eating dirt and lets both of her kids play naked in the backyard. Mothering seems effortless and natural to her, and I dig it. It's refreshing to hang out with someone who isn't afraid to let her kids enjoy life.

I am not a particularly anxiety-ridden person, but I spent the majority of Charlie's first year worrying a lot and overall just feeling like I wasn't doing a good job. It feels good to say that I now feel pretty confident with this mothering stuff, and I see a lot of "free range" tendencies in myself now, which makes me feel good - I think this was how it was meant to be all along. Everyone has their own parenting style, but being so anxious was exhausting for me. I'm glad I've moved past it and am not worrying about every little thing.

Anyway, last week Emily and I gave Charlie a haircut. I didn't see the point to taking him into Supercuts to pay for an uneven haircut, which is pretty much what we got the first time. So we decided to avoid a meltdown and gave him an uneven homemade haircut. No money spent, and he got to enjoy some cookies while it happened. Emily did the front, which is horribly uneven (but terribly cute), and I did the back and sides (which are also horribly uneven but terribly cute). I'm really surprised that it doesn't look awful. I think his cute face is probably the reason why.

Here he is before:



And here's an after shot (taken several days later, but you can see how wonderfully uneven the haircut is):



The best part of the haircut was probably a moment when we were sitting on the floor, a tangle of children and covered in cookie crumbs. Emily said, "Here we are sitting in a pile of crumbs and hair." And yep, that's pretty much what motherhood is like for me. If it's not crumbs and hair, it's goldfish crackers and peanut butter. And I love it.

(PS - I am unofficially participating in NaBloPoMo. I love doing this every year, but since I'll be popping out a babe sometime this month, I can't really commit. But I'm going to try to post each day until I just can't anymore. So maybe if I disappear then you'll know that I done went and had myself a baby. But in all reality a missed post could just mean that I was really tired that day. I'll leave you guessing. How fun that will be for you!)