Earlier today, my daughter and I were playing "Hairdresser". She doesn't quite know how to play it, having seldom experienced it--kind of like Mary and Laura playing "Town", but she gets some of the nuanced communication between Professional Aesthetician and Client.
She discovered that I homeschool. "Oh. Is it like school at home, or do you do lots of workbooks, or what?" she asked as she worked on my head. So I explained to the hairdresser that we're pretty low key around here and learn all year long in various ways.
My daughter noticed how smooth my hair was, after she brushed it, and complimented me on its shininess and what a good job I must've done yesterday brushing it myself for it to be so smooth today. I thought she should get the credit, and she said that that's how I compliment her after she brushes her hair--this was her chance to return the favor. I thanked her and said she was the best hairdresser I've ever known, and she pointed out, "for a blind person." You see, she was a blind hairdresser and could make my beautiful coif with just the touch of her ultra-sensitive fingers.
I'm reading the fifth book of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series out loud to the kids, By the Shores of Silver Lake, and in the first chapter we learn of Mary having come down with Scarlet Fever and then becoming blind. Both kids thought that was awful, but my son thought it would be cool to become someone's eyes for them, as Pa had instructed Laura to do for Mary.
And speaking of seeing, my son looked up from his Calvin and Hobbes book and noticed my growing streak of grey at the upper left of my forehead, as the hairdresser was performing her magic on my head with hair sticks and clips and barrettes and hair bands.
We talked a bit about how my hair has been getting more grey in it the last couple of years. My son asked why people go grey, and I didn't know for sure, but said that the part of the body that produces the pigment for the hair starts to shut down and it just comes out grey. Then my son explained what he thought about it all.
He bets that in cave men days, the people going grey would be the most powerful. They were the strongest because they'd lived longer and had the wisdom of experience and observation and would be seen as the wise elders. If you take Dumbledore, for example, he had glasses and a long grey beard and was very wise. I heartily agreed with my son's take on it all.
Around here, I can look like a crazy person with my hair sticking out in all sorts of ways from my hairdresser daughter and I'm seen as BEAUTIFUL! The fact that I have grey in my hair only means that I'm WISE to my son.
Beautiful and wise--what could be better?
I love my kids! They are beautiful and wise too, even without the crazy hairdo or grey hair.
Posts
