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Dad Diary


 I'm not sure a toddler haircut is ever easy, but the pandemic adds a special twist.

How strange life is. I was on the phone with my grandmother, who was telling me about her first job. She had worked for a Buffalo mobster who owned a cab company. "He was kind, he often bought me lunch, and I worked there for years."

As Grams and I pondered this--the cheery employer who was also maybe a murderer--I found my son was getting summoned to our back porch.

Our visiting barber, a friendly, steely lady from Croatia, began her work. It was raining, so Josh, Marc, Mila, and I all tried to crowd under a semi-functional "sun umbrella," which soon became fully *dys* functional. It flapped around uselessly, as Josh screamed and kicked his little feet. 

My response to a tantrum is to dissociate, and you can tell I'm doing this when I begin singing Audra McDonald tunes. These tunes will ostensibly "calm" Joshua--but he tends not to notice, or tends just to get louder.

"Free and easy!" I sang. "That's my style! How-dee-doo me! Watch me smile!"

At this point, Josh became so furious, he barfed.

People say a good thing for young motherhood is "a long walk and a stiff drink." As a young(ish?) mother, I can endorse this.

We're fine. The haircut is fine. And we had a great deal of energy to deal with the barf, because literally nothing else has happened to us in the last fifty-nine months of the pandemic.

Next time: I think I'll cancel, in the rain....
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