Beauty School Dropout

     Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of caring for my daughter on my own. It may not be with the same finesse, daintiness, organization or level of hygiene that my wife brings to the table, but I figure that if there is no bleeding, there are no broken bones, fires, explosions, vomiting, car crashes, nuclear mishaps or zombie outbreaks, I've done pretty well. I’m finding that mommies and daddies have very different standards, and when left to their own devices there may be markedly different processes, but the end result is the same: a healthy, happy baby and family. 

     My wife has gone to visit her sister for a few days and that means it’s Daddy’s turn. And by Daddy’s turn I mean that Mommy planned everything out before her departure. Lists were made, activities were suggested, lunches were planned and there were coordinated outfits plainly laid out and organized for every day of the week. I was told specifically what should be worn on which day and on penalty if death DO NOT dress her of my own accord lest her daughter look like a little ragamuffin that’s just disembarked from some rickety train on which goats and chickens make up half of the passengers and the people ride on the roof. I kindly explained that I was capable of dressing our daughter and if need be, I would just dress her like I dress. That idea was quickly crushed because apparently I dress like a hobo. It was agreed that I would use the prescribed outfits on their corresponding days.

     My daughter has a lot of hair. It’s very long and wavy (I called it curly, but was corrected). Hence, something needs to be done with her hair in the morning. I have had the same hairstyle since I was seven years old: short and relatively maintenance free. So, as you can probably imagine, doing hair is not really in my repertoire. I do, however, try to do our daughter’s hair on occasion, which normally leads to my wife taking her back into the bathroom to fix the horrendous rat’s nest that I've created. Before her departure, my wife suggested that I watch some YouTube videos on how to do a toddler’s hair, and I agreed, so I indulged. I quickly noted two issues with my research: first, most of the children shown in these “instructional” video have wispy little tufts of hair that are easily tamable, and secondly, all of the little children in these videos sit perfectly still and quietly smile for the camera. My daughter possesses neither of these qualities. To the first point, her hair reaches about halfway down her back and apparently, late at night, little gnomes crawl in her bed and tie knots everywhere in her head (and there is evidence to suggest that they also hide some of my socks). And to the second and more egregious distinction, if my daughter were to attempt to sit still for more than five seconds she would begin to shake violently and then erupt into a reaction of nuclear fission that would engulf the entire known universe . So, when you combine a toddler whose movements are measured on the Richter scale with a father who has the hair styling skills of a monkey, nothing but calamity can ensue.

     Not half a second after my daughter was seated on the bathroom counter top at a height perfect for reaching her hair, she was trying to open the medicine cabinet and dig through the sundry of items inside. Then she was picking up Mommy’s make up brushes and saying, “I WANNA PAINT.” Then she was opening the jars and taking out all of the cotton balls, then the cotton swabs, then the tooth brushes and the tooth paste. Then, of course she would drop everything in her hands and bend down into the sink to pick them up, but as I was holding a handful of her hair at the time, she didn't quite make it all the way down. She did however, yell and scream at me for pulling her hair as she kept trying to bend down into the sink to retrieve her lost treasures. I tried my best to explain that when Daddy is holding your hair, you can’t bend down, because it will pull. I do believe, at that point, if her vocabulary contained any expletives she would have been hurling them at me like a drunken trucker. Fifteen or so grueling minutes of screaming and fidgeting later, we had achieved some rudimentary form of pigtails. Perfect or not, we had to get out of that bathroom before she burnt it down out of spite and anger. I quickly realized, however, just how poorly a job I had done on her hair. I thought that with a quick undoing of the rubber band that was holding the hair in place I would be able to administer a fix, reapply the rubber band, and we would move on with our day. Little did I know that those little, tiny rubber bands are apparently quite volatile and when you attempt to re-use them, they explode and shower you with tiny, stinging bits of brightly colored death. Of course, I had no other rubber bands in my possession, so we had to make our way back to the bedroom. I had to pick her up from the counter in a still seated position whilst holding her errant pigtail in place with my other hand, carry her back to her room, sit her on her changing table, and grab an extra rubber band without letting go of the pigtail. With rubber band in hand and pig tail in other hand, I grimaced in disbelief as I again picked up my daughter to take her back to the bathroom where I realized I had left the hairbrush. We both just wanted to put the madness to an end. Sometimes, the things I do end up looking like they should be in a Three Stooges short. I just hope that when we go out today, people won’t think I've kidnapped some poor, little homeless girl.