A Cut Above The Rest

I think it would be fair to say that today was pretty difficult. It all started this morning. I could hear Jenson struggling with his Lego as I struggled to pull myself out of bed after a difficult night spent with Wren who had joined us at about 2am.

The plan was to spend the day indulging in craft but Jenson decided he wanted to go to Cirencester instead to pick up the trophy he had painted last week at Pick A Pot And Paint. We went in the car, not the bus, as I could sense Jenson was already on the edge of a melt down. 

It was all going fairly smoothly. Just a couple of little incidents that made me think he wasn't quite his normal self. However, it was when we arrived back home and he pulled his trophy out of its carefully wrapped packaging that it all fell apart. Literally. The trophy was broken in two after Jenson had given it a good whack after lashing out at Wren. He ran off crying as I desperately tried to superglue it back together. It worked with some success until Jenson came back out of his room, picked it up and it fell to the ground again, this time smashing into many more pieces. Cue lots of screaming and crying.  

Luckily we had to head out again pretty quickly. I had arranged to meet someone at Waitrose who I had bought a science book from off a Facebook selling site. We made a quick stop in Waitrose too but I soon had another problem on my hands as Jenson ran off shouting: "I don't want to be near you," after I refused to buy him a box of Lego. I eventually found him hiding outside the front of the store. By this point I felt I could do nothing right. An emergency phone call was made to Daddy as Jenson begged him to come home to fix his Lego/trophy/life in general. Daddy promised to come home early although before that we still had a trip to the hairdresser to get through. I wasn't hopeful that it would go well or even happen based on Jenson's mood.

This would be Jenson's very first time at a hairdresser. He has always refused to have his hair cut professionally for he is so desperately shy. Even when his own Dad cuts it you would think he was being murdered and has always needed a life size bag of sweets to suck on. So when he said he wanted to go to the hairdressers it took me by total surprise and the fact he followed it through left me feeling very proud. 

The hairdresser assigned to us wasn't the quickest it must be said, but he was very nice. It took him over an hour to cut Jenson's hair and at times it was painful to watch. He was clearly learning on the job and Jenson made a good dummy. To Jenson's credit he sat there the whole time without complaining once. It was a minor miracle when I thought about how the rest of the day had gone. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 

For so many years Jenson has always refused to go to the hairdresser, but today he was all grown up and looking good. He had said something to me the other night at bedtime. I think I had asked him if he was looking forward to going to the hairdresser and he had said yes, "because I can trust him." It was a strange thing to hear him say. Why would he not trust him? I've come to realise that apart from his shyness, Jenson is also very nervous in new situations and finds it hard to trust complete strangers. I don't blame him.

The question I'm more interested in though is whether I think he would have had the courage to go to the hairdresser if he was still at school? And I don't think he would have done. He has really changed since quitting school. He's more chatty to strangers, more confident in social situations and generally a much happier little boy. I can only take comfort from the knowledge that being around home more and his family, and me perhaps most importantly, is giving him more solid foundations from which he feels more confident and able to go forth in the world and grab onto things. It was lovely to hear him chatting to the hairdresser today about Christmas and how much he is enjoying being home schooled. Oh the irony when I found out that the hairdresser and his three sisters were also all home schooled! 

The before and after shots! I even bought him his own tub of hair wax and asked the hairdresser if he could bag up all of Jenson's cut hair so we could take it home with us and make a picture out of it. Watch this space!