Kevin took him to his barber, who is such a wonderful person and a good friend of Kevin's, but bless his heart, I don't think he's really up-to-date with "trendy" little boys hairstyles. Well, I was
Anyway, there was a communication breakdown somewhere between the time when my guys climbed into Kevin's truck and left our house and when the barber made the first snip. I didn't know the full hilarity of the hair cut until the next morning because I had a meeting and didn't get home until after Whit was in bed. I should have suspected something though when Kevin nervously told me that night, "I'm not sure that you'll like Whit's hair"...Translation: Please don't be mad at me; it's not all my fault; maybe there's some snowball's chance in hell that you'll like it, but I'm kinda panicked right now because I may have ruined his hair and you're pretty particular about how his hair looks. I sure am glad I'll already be at work when he wakes up and you see his hair.
For some reason, Kevin's comment didn't really resonate with me until Whit woke up the next morning. As I am hearing him wake up on the monitor, I tiredly walk across the house to his room, open the door, and there stands the cutest 3-year-old little boy in his crib with....you guessed it, a MULLET! It was the quintessential "business in the front and party in the back." The barber had taken Kevin very seriously when Kevin said that his wife didn't want him to cut the curls off in the back. However the curls in the front and on top of his head weren't as lucky! His hair was cut short around his forehead and sideburns and then starting just behind the ears were what remained of those cute curls that just one day prior covered all of his head instead of just the back half.
Every time I looked at Whit that day I just burst into laughter! For some stupid reason I didn't think to take out my camera and capture the mullet forever in history through a picture - it may just be the best missed photographic opportunity in Whit's life so far! Ha!
Needless to say I took Whit to Great Clips that afternoon and had the rest of his hair cut to match the front. I told the girl (who was very hip, funky, and trendy) that I wanted him to have a "shaggier" hair cut so I wanted to make sure she cut it so it would easily grow back out longer. I was tempted to leave it in the mullet for my step-brother's wedding but I decided against it. Just a disclaimer - I love Kevin's barber - he cuts Kevin's hair great, is an extremely nice Christian man, and actually cut Whit's hair for the first time ever, but this one time there was just a breakdown of the message somewhere along the line! Of course there are no hard feelings whatsoever...just a funny story to tell as the outcome!
On a not-so-funny note, Whit also endured an inch-long gash just above his left eyebrow on Thursday of this past week. He was taunting Charlie with a goldfish and would let Charlie sniff it in his hand as he took off running, holding the goldfish snack behind him while Charlie tried to catch up and snatch it out of his hand. Instead of looking forward to where he was running, he was looking back to make sure he still had Charlie's undivided attention and that Charlie was still trying to get the snack. About that time he smacked head-first into the door frame of the walkway between our den and kitchen. His head hit the door frame (leaving a bruise) but the worst was that his glasses also hit and the hinge gashed his forehead. As most people know, the face/head bleeds terribly, and after I got Whit calmed down and the bleeding stopped, I realized that he was probably going to need something more than simply a Toy Story bandaid to heal this wound. I took Whit to his pediatrician, who at first was going to put a few stitches in his face, but then got the wonderful idea to get the nurse to go over to Davie Dermatology and see if they had any dermabond on hand so he could do that instead of stitches in order to minimize scarring and not have to sew up a squirmy 3-year-old's head. Thankfully they did and we were in and out within an hour with a fresh coat of dermabond holding Whit's head together. Whit was such a brave boy that he was treated to lunch out with Mommy & Daddy at Mi Pueblo along with a Buzz Lightyear toy at KMart. It's already starting to heal nicely, and the hardest part is that he can't get it wet for 7 days.
This past Friday we left our house at 5am and traveled the 7-hour trek through NC, VA, WV and finally to Columbus, OH for my step-brother, Payton's, wedding. Payton and his bride, Bethany, had asked Whit to be the ring bearer for their wedding on Saturday. We arrived around lunch and checked into our beautiful corner-room, hotel suite at the Doubletree in the heart of downtown Columbus. Kevin took Whit to the COSI, a hands-on science center just across the waterway from our hotel. They were having the 5th annual Farm Days where over 20 pieces of farm equipment was on display outside of the science center. Whit had a great time trying out the big tractors and I think Daddy had an equally fun time admiring the farm equipment!
We headed to the rehearsal at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Gahanna, Ohio. It's a beautiful church that is in a relatively new building with beautiful stained glass windows and lots of woodwork. During the rehearsal, we had quite a time trying to convince Whit to practice walking down the aisle. He liked to run, skip, jump and do pretty much anything except walk down the aisle slowly beside of the flower girl. We were frustrated and finally just took him out of the sanctuary for a little break, since he had decided that if he couldn't run or jump down the aisle, then he was just going to flat out refuse to go down at all!
In my desperate attempts to refocus his attention, we started looking at all of the different things in the Catholic church (bowls of holy water, communion table, angel figurines, etc.). At the altar (not sure what the technical Catholic terminology is) at the front, there was a hand-carved, wooden life-sized Jesus hanging on a cross, suspended from the two-story ceiling. Towards the end of showing him around the church I pointed out Jesus. He exclaimed "Oh, Jesus!" in utter amazement as he saw the Jesus on the cross hanging from the ceiling.
In a desperate, last-minute knee-jerk attempt to get him to civilly walk down the aisle during the rehearsal, I told him that "Jesus would be really happy if he would walk down the aisle slowly like a big boy." Ok, so I fully know that guilting him into being a "proper" ring bearer probably wasn't the very best approach and Dr. Spock and/or James Dobson likely don't recommend that tactic, but listen, I was desperate, exhausted and at the end of my rope. I wanted him to do JUST ONE rehearsal of this ring bearer role correct. Plus, we were in a Catholic church -- and Catholics are used to the feeling of guilt, right? Catholic guilt is just part of the "culture" of being a Catholic! I mean, I know we're Baptist and all, but I was just following the whole, "while in Rome...." mantra, replacing "Rome" with "a Catholic church"! Ha!
Anyway - IT WORKED and I was stoked! Maybe we could not have to torture him (and us) with another rehearsal and we'd have this thing nailed. Whit was super excited about the prospect of Jesus being pleased about him being a top-notch ring bearer. He talked about it and how he was going to be a good boy and walk slowly down the aisle hand-in-hand with Avery, the flower girl. They lined up at the back of the church for one last rehearsal. Whit looked up at Jesus and...
RAN DOWN THE AISLE as if he was running straight into Jesus' loving arms and exclaimed, "I Coming, Jesus!" in the most passionate little 3-year old voice ever!
Well, everyone in the bridal party and in the entire church (except maybe the Priest?) burst into laughter.The only thing that could have made it funnier was if I had left the mullet hair cut in his hair from earlier in the week! Ha!
When he got down to the front of the church, he looked up at Jesus, looked back at me & Kevin and then said, "Mommy, Jesus take a nap. He not want to play with me right now." Mind you, the figurine depicts our Savior with His head hung low, just before He died for our sins hanging on the cross. But once again, more laughter. If Whit couldn't provide a flawless ring bearer rehearsal he could at least do what he does best - bring comedic relief to any situation!
Needless to say we never got that one good rehearsal in on Friday night. After we left the church we headed to Mezzo Italian Kitchen and Wine in Gahanna for the yummy rehearsal dinner hosted by my dad and step-mom and Payton's dad. We woke up Saturday morning (the big wedding day) and Kevin and Whit went back over to COSI to revisit the tractors and to purchase a small John Deere combine toy that Whit had his eye on the day before.
We arrived at the church and got Whit dressed up in his suit. He looked like a little man instead of my sweet baby boy!
We stayed in the groomsman room until the ushers started seating the grandmothers and then with great anticipation and a high anxiety level (ok, so maybe that was mostly me) we took Whit up to the sanctuary, giving him a pep-talk the whole way. We got to the door of the church, crossed our fingers and toes and said a prayer that somehow miraculously he would walk down the aisle and be the perfect little ring bearer and we could sit back, relax and smile proudly and have people come up to us after the hour-and-a-half Catholic wedding and say things like "he's so well behaved" or "I can't believe how mature he was as a ring bearer".
We realized no more than 3 feet down the main aisle of the church that it just wasn't going to happen. He stopped dead in his tracks as the flower girl walked on, looked back at us and said, "I not want to walk down in the church to see Jesus." We didn't of course want to make a scene or take away from Bethany and Payton's big day, so we took a seat with the cutest ring bearer ever on the back row of the church. After a few minutes he was bored and antsy, so I took him downstairs to the nursery where he could play and I could watch the rest of the wedding on closed circuit television.
I was able to watch my sweet little boy be just that - a little boy - and realized that more than anything, I want him to have fun and to at least TRY things out - even if he tries it and doesn't want to do it or doesn't want to try again - at least he tried. I'm so proud of him for trying and for all that he's endured this week. He's definitely been a good sport about it and smiled his precious smile through it all!
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