I just found out that what has been done to my hair is called a ‘bob’.

I was a little worried it was too boyish. Even the style name is reminiscent of a man, or maybe a boy in the thirties. I saw a movie once about a British family living in London during WWII who had a little boy with the exact same hair cut as me- I am going to call it “The Toby” and insist that I had it styled *on purpose* to honor his memory. Or something.

It’s March, as we all know, the last month of winter. Usually by this time of year, my hair is long, tangled, dried up, frizzed out of its mind and appears frightening to the general populous. Time for a hair cut, or as I call it, a shearing. My mama usually does this after she has shorn the boys, she pulls out her sharp scissors and takes an inch or two off my locks; the dry, shattered ends falls away and I am left with hair that no longer hates itself. It untangles, curls up nicely and I am ready for warm weather.

“Hey babe, you want to cut my hair?” I asked my husband the other day.

“What? You want me to cut your hair?” He seemed immediately intrigued- and a little offset.

“Yeah, I need it trimmed up. It’s not hard, it’s curly and you can’t really mess it up, just take a little off the ends all around and we’ll be set.”

So we set to it. We had to try a couple pairs of scissors before we found ones that weren’t going to just separate the strands by friction, but then we were off, and my husband very nervously snipped away at my hair.

Curly or not, messy or not, child-eating or not, it’s hard to cut hair and get it even, especially when you’ve never done it before, but my boy bravely went about the task and sooner than later, I had short hair. Rather short hair. Bob hair.

“I think you’re adorable.” He said, “But we need to go to a barber tomorrow so they can *fix* it.”

Fix it. He did all the hard work, taking a good five inches off all around, not it was time for the professionals to come in and tie up the loose ends and trim up the long ones.

Enter Mark. Hair stylist for over 15 who saw my newly shorn ‘do’ and said, “Aha. Your husband cut your hair? How long have you been married? You’re a curly girl, eh? You like your curly hair?” He began to fuss with it, pull it, mess it up, examining it like I’ve seen my mom do with expensive fabric, rubbing it between her fingers and assessing it’s content and whether or not it will hold in the wash. He looked at it through the glasses that were riding low on his nose, then over the glasses, then from the side. “We love curly hair here…” he continued and spun me around so that I was facing myself in the mirror that covered the back wall of the salon. “.. what are you looking for exactly?”  I looked hard, and had the strangest urge to say, very seriously, “Can you make me look just like Audrey Hepburn?” Scratch that.

“Something even. I don’t really know. It’s been so long since it was any style at all, I have no idea what would look good- it’s up to you.” I smiled confidently in the mirror at him, Mark began to glisten.

“Ok then.” He hemmed and hawed and pulled and fussed and then said, “I know what we’ll do with you.” After washing my hair and combing it all out, he unveiled a pair of scissors that would have made ours blush (I’m glad they weren’t there to see it) and began to snip away.

And snip. And comb. And snip. And pull. And snip. We eavesdropped on the lady sitting in a different part of the room, talking about the Oscars, going through each of the nominees and systematically describing their hair, dress and personality.

Finally, Mark stepped back and took the large black apron that had covered me. He smiled triumphantly.

I now have Very Short, Very Curly, Very Adorable hair. I almost, *almost* don’t feel like I can pull it off to tell the truth, and I confess that I spent some time tonight looking up short, curly hair styles to get some ideas of how to keep it looking ‘adorable’ and not ‘hysterical’.

My child-eating hair is no more. It looks more like puppy fur than anything, and that’s not very terrifying, about two inches long in the back, ridiculously curly, edging down to a longer length in front that reaches my chin, also rather enthusiastically curled.

I look cute. Oh my.