Haircut

Tiernen never had a haircut.

She was born with black finger waves and looked like a little Eskimo baby.  Her hair was so long at birth that it literally cascaded over my arm when I held her.

And then, like with most babies, it all fell out.  She was bald until well after her first birthday.  Then, thankful to see hair again, I just let it grow.  Every once in a while, I would trim her brown bangs so they wouldn't get in her eyes, but other than trims, she never got a haircut.

Joshua, however, needed one.

It wasn't that his hair was incredibly long.  It just was incredibly uneven, longer in the back and choppy, almost mullet-like.  Since Darryl thinks any hair on a male longer than 1/8 of an inch is "too long," he really wanted Joshua to have a haircut.

As foster parents though, we were not allowed to get him one.  We would have to get permission from his mother.

I had a bad history with haircut permission.  When we had Baby O and W, W's hair was in desperate need of a cut.  He had light brown loose curls, but his hair was so thin, the weight of his hair would show his scalp and make him look bald.  

What was worse is that he desperately WANTED a haircut.  He was a very pretty little boy with an angelic face, and whenever we were out, people would mistake him for a boy.  (Being misgendered on the regular is traumatic, even for your average cis three-year-old.  Every time we got in the car, he would ask, "Are we going to get a haircut?"  He would pretend to call his father and say, "Hello, dad?  Can I get a haircut?  Okay, thanks!"

Except his father flat out refused to give permission.  He wanted it to be long.  He talked about getting it professionally braided "once he came home."  I paid a LOT of money to get his hair professionally braided, not once but twice.  His hair was so fine that by the next day, all the braids were coming undone, leaving him with a fuzzy halo of fine hair around his head.

I feared the same thing would happen with Joshua.  

I texted his mom and she gave permission with the caveat that we keep all of his baby hair and give it to her the next court date.  I said I would.

Darryl was THRILLED to bring Joshua to his barbershop.  According to Darryl, ONLY Dominicans know how to cut his hair.  And so, the day before Thanksgiving, we trucked on down to Darryl's place and Joshua had his first haircut.  I took a million pictures to send to his mother.  Along with, of course, his hair.

Here are some of the better ones.