There Go My Family Pictures

Ok, so we are back from our trip to Florida, and I'll post all about that later when I have time. I went to bed at 2 am last night, and got up at 8 this morning to get the kids off to school. I've spent my entire day trying to get laundry caught up and clean up the messes that the kids created while I was gone.

I'm just having a really rough day, though. Tomorrow we were going to do family pictures. We had pictures done in the spring (the picture that I have on top of this blog), and they turned out great of everyone. But I didn't like them because of me--I was so fat in them. It was those pictures that prompted me to go on this diet. And I have had unreal self control all summer long, trying to lose weight. And I lost 35 pounds! And I decided to do family pictures again so that I'd actually love the pictures this time. So, just before we left for Florida, I sat all 4 boys down and did haircuts on them so their hair would be perfect in a week when we had family pictures. Josh and Aaron's hair always gets cut pretty short, but Nate's hair I love to leave a little longer on top. Nate's hair is one of my favorite things about him. I love that it's darker than all the other kids'--it sets him apart from the rest, makes him unique. And it's a different texture than the other boys'--it's softer and lays down great when it's long (the other boys' hair just poofs out when it's longer). I love having it longer, so you can really see the color, and so I can actually style it. So even though I had a hundred things that I needed to get done before my trip, I made the time to do the boys' haircuts so they would be perfect. I even took extra time on Nate's and used the trimmers to make sure the line on his neck was just perfect. He looked great (they all did). {I did not take any pictures of this most recent haircut, but it was very similar to the haircut that he had when he started preschool a few months ago.}

And then I came home to this:


My dad decided to shave off all of Nate's hair while I was gone. He didn't even ask me. He didn't pay attention to the fact that Nate's hair was perfectly trimmed around the neck and ears (he definitely didn't look like he NEEDED a haircut). He didn't call me and say "Do you mind if I cut Nate's hair?". He just took him out in the backyard and shaved all his hair off.

And when I called him on it this morning, and told him that he should have asked me, that you don't just cut someone else's kid's hair without asking their parent, he didn't care. I told him that I was going to have to cancel family pictures--not postpone, but cancel (by the time Nate's hair grows back, it will be winter), and he didn't care. And instead of being willing to apologize and admit that he probably should have asked me before he shaved my son's hair off, he decided to pack him and my mom up and go home. They had promised the kids they were going to stay another night so they'd be here on Halloween to see them trick or treating. So now I get to try and explain to the kids when they get home from school, that it was more important to their grandpa to be stubborn and not apologize than it was to keep his promise to them.

Seriously, maybe I'm over reacting, but Nate didn't need a hair cut. He had a hair cut one week ago. It wasn't like his hair was hanging over his ears or neck, making my dad think that he'd be doing me a favor by cutting it. He cut it because it wasn't the haircut he would have done on Nate if he had been in charge. So he took the chance while I was gone to shave it off military style the way he likes it. And he wasn't even sorry that he did it. When I told him that I'd just cut Nate's hair one week ago, his comment was, "When did you do it? In the middle of the night when you couldn't see? Because it was a terrible haircut and had a big patch of long hair hanging out the back." I guarantee you that Nate didn't have a patch of long hair in the back--I took extra time making sure his haircut was perfect because we had pictures, and I had Scott looking over my shoulder telling me whether or not it was even. It was a great haircut. It was perfect. And my dad shaved it all off. And even if there was an uneven patch in the back (which there wasn't), it's a long way from just evening it up in the back to shaving off the entire top. I still am just fuming about it.

So now I have to cancel family pictures. These pictures were supposed to be perfect. We already have pictures that are okay--these were supposed to be perfect. These were supposed to be the pictures that I blow up really big and hang in my entry way for the next three years (that replace my all time favorite family picture that has been hanging there for the last three years). I was going to spend hundreds of dollars on these pictures because they were going to be perfect (my dad also told me I was stupid to be spending money on pictures--his exact words were "all you need is a camera"). I cannot spend that kind of money on pictures that I'm not going to love, or that I'm going to look at and zoom in on Nate and get angry over his haircut. We already have great family pictures of the family as a whole, I wanted a picture where we were ALL perfect.

And no apology. Nothing. No concession that maybe he should have asked me first. No inkling of regret that I was so upset over having to cancel my family pictures. No apology for calling the haircut that I had given my son horrible and uneven. Instead of just saying sorry to me, he went home and left me to have to explain to my kids when they get home why grandma and grandpa couldn't stay to trick or treat with them.

So not only am exhausted from no sleep last night, I here working to clean up the disaster that the house became while I was gone, AND I'm doing it with red puffy eyes from crying all day long. My perfect Fall family picture down by the Eagle River, that I've been dreaming about all summer long, will not happen. And instead of getting to go trick or treating with Scott and the kids tonight (we were going to have my parents hand out candy for us here), I'll have to stay home and hand out candy while they go out without me.

It's really kind of a crappy first day back from vacation.