The Haircut

Need to give some background information before we get to the main story. Sam is the oldest of three. When the second child came along almost 5 years later, we had no idea what to expect with all we had been through with Sam. The second, Hayden, was a dream of a baby. He knows this. Fat(so fat), happy and would sleep anywhere. He was such a good baby, why not have one more? Ha ha on us! The third, Ryan, oh my. This kid knows all this about him so it’s ok for me to say he was the most demanding baby. He’s lucky he was really, really cute. This baby thought he was an only child. If you weren’t holding him, he was screaming. He obviously missed the fucking memo that he was third in a very long line. Love all three of them with all my being, but there sure are days that the like factor wasn’t (if honest, isn’t) always 100%.

So pre monster baby, I would drive Sam with a very happy Hayden to and from school. Sam was happy and Hayden was always up for the 45 minute round trip ride twice a day. Easy. Took a lot of time, but Sam had horrible seizures and I didn’t want to put her on the school bus.

Enter Ryan to the family. This baby SCREAMED every time I buckled his cute little self into his car seat. It was miserable. 45 minutes twice a day when the one who thought he was an only child made me wonder what the hell was I going to do.

What happened? After 6 months of screaming baby, Sam had to start taking the school bus. It was either that or my sanity. The public special education school bus was a source of relief and anxiety. Relief that none of us had to listen to a baby crying for an hour and a half a day and anxiety because of Sam with all her health issues. If it wasn’t for screaming baby, I would have driven Sam to and from school for many, many more years.

Most of the time, the bus was good. Every once in a while there were minor issues, late, wouldn’t show up, took forever for Sam to get home. Then one day she had a substitute bus driver. This driver didn’t know to make sure that the kids didn’t have their backpacks with them on the bus, they were supposed to be kept up front. Sam was 8 years old on this day and in a class with kids with quite the range of abilities. One classmate always made me chuckle. This little girl was always so nice to Sam. So when she had her backpack with her on this particular day while seated next to Sam she decided to get her scissors out of her backpack and give Sam a haircut. Why give her a haircut? Her answer was she was trying to help Sam see better. This little girl truly thought she was helping Sam. And by helping Sam, on this ride home with not supposed to have backpack, she got to work on the help you see better haircut. I did get a call from bus company that there was an incident on the bus before Sam got home. They assured me Sam was ok. When I walked onto that bus, it was not fucking ok. There was hair EVERYWHERE! Sam had the longest, thickest hair and holy shit it was everywhere. I was in shock. First, I made sure her eyes were ok and then got her off that hair riddled bus as fast as possible. I am still amazed that neither of them were hurt during this cut half of Sam’s hair off to help her see better haircut.

The shock wears off and drive the 30 minutes to where Sam had been getting haircuts not by a classmate for years. Ryan car rides now involved listening to The Who at a very loud level and only the expletive version of the songs were acceptable to him. He mastered the chorus to Who Are You at 18 months. He was still miserable in the car, but if you put on the who the fuck are you song, you just may make it to your destination with your sanity.

I cried at the salon. The only option was to cut the rest of her hair off. Some places were cut almost to the scalp. This was not a time I took many pictures(Sam looked so ill without her long hair) and was before we had phones that took pictures. Here is the one picture I could find that shows after. I must have liked all of them this day because I’m letting a disabled 8 year old with a buzz cut, an almost 2 year old and a 3 1/2 year old color eggs.

Not sure what happened to that particular bus driver, but we never saw her again. Sam’s friend gave her a hug, an I’m sorry, a princess hat and gloves.

Cheers. Nancy