Self Aware

There is a fine line between being relaxed and letting your kids pick out their own clothes and brush their own teeth and having them become the kooky looking kid that everyone makes fun of.

Well, Jac has discovered that he doesn’t want to be made fun of. He didn’t tell me a specific time when he was laughed at but he has never liked being the center of attention, unless Jeff and I are the only ones observing. Needless to say, he became self aware last week.

It was a fairly normal morning. I don’t recall too much craziness; although Jac’s hair was sticking up. Our routine in the morning is to comb hair and put on shoes right about the time that we are to leave. Jac went to bed before his hair had dried and you could tell. Generally his hair requires a very quick comb, nothing too vigorous, it normally behaves quite nicely. It was not behaving this morning.

I doused the comb with water and ran it through his hair. It helped a little. I got a lot more water and patted it down. It looked about 80%. I combed some more and we were getting up to 90%. Good enough for preschool.

We got to school and I had to go in versus just dropping off through carpool line. I normally drop off and then Mia and I are on our way to some shopping extravaganza. But today we all got to run in and leave a car seat in the lobby for the mommy who would be picking Jac up.

As we got through the front doors of the school, Jac asked, “Mommy, is my hair sticking up?”

I looked at it. Why yes, yes it was. It must have dried and remembered that this morning instead of laying nicely against his cute little head it wanted to spring up right in the middle similar to Alfalfa. He probably could feel it bouncing around on his head as he walked.

“Yes Jac, it is.”

He stopped and looked up at me in only the way that Jac can. With big soulful eyes, he said, “I don’t want anybody to laugh at me.”

Oh my goodness. If you had been in the lobby with me at that moment you would have heard my heart break. I almost cried. But mommy mode took over. I quickly shuttled them both into the bathroom in the lobby.

I literally dumped water over his head until it was sopping and very carefully used my hand to smooth it down as I had no comb. It looked wet, but flat. He could see himself in the mirror and I could see the tension leave his shoulders. Phew. Somehow I helped Jac avoid having his tiny little self esteem being harmed. What a close call.

We are very careful combing hair in the mornings now, and that is fine.