Warning: This post is very long (really it is), but very good and worth reading (if you have an hour). Plus the pictures at the end are worth looking at. But it may take you awhile! If not the pictures are still good :)
To start this post off I have a little story. One day we were at Grandma’s house. Tyler was relating a funny story from primary the week before. I think the lesson was about being kind to others and not making fun of them….something like that. The part Ty thought was so funny was that the person giving the lesson had asked what would you do if you saw a little girl with no hair (because she has cancer) sitting on the park bench. I think that probably no one was answering, so she asked “would you call out “hey baldy!” or would you say something else?” Ty thought this was hilarious and kept saying “hey baldy” over and over. Not because he wanted to be rude, I think he just thought it was ridiculous/funny that someone would say that. The kicker is that we had just found out that his Grandma has cancer the week before. We hadn’t told the kids yet so he had no idea. AND in all honesty, it didn’t cross my mind at the moment either. I told him to knock it off because he was driving me crazy. Thankfully his Grandma thought it was funny. So we finally told the boys that Grandma has cancer. When we told them I reminded Ty about the above story and his eyes got huge!….no I mean huge! He totally remembered what he’d said and the moment it dawned on him what that all meant was priceless. Thankfully Grandma has a great sense of humor. Now its a little joke between the two of them and she tells him all the time when she loses her hair he can call her “hey baldy!”
My boys…and I mean all of them…decided that when Grandma lost her hair they were going to shave theirs as well. Ironically, I think they were anxious for her to lose it! Sad I know. However, they are also extremely sympathetic and loving too. They call her after every chemo and after her surgeries to check on her and make sure that she’s doing ok, they’ve made her cards etc. Well the time came this week to shave off the hair. Ty even packed himself a big ol’ pair of purple-handled-paper-cutting scissors to Grandmas Monday night. Crystal’s trimmers had something wrong with them though so they decided to wait until Wednesday night. I told the boys that I would shave their heads for them but they declined. Apparently the shaving of heads is a very technical sort of job requiring expertise only and a degree in hair cutting-ness, which they reminded me I don’t have. So it was off to Bella Beauty….
Jesse was first.
Here is his before picture. He needed a haircut anyway!
And here’s our first little baldy all finished up.
Ty went next. That boy has some hair. It’s pretty long and thick!
This is what Ty will look like when he’s 80. It would make his Great Grandpa Long proud.
Ok so Grandpa Long’s hair wasn’t that long…but still.
He doesn’t really like it when I take pictures of him. Can you tell? Oh, and Crystal had fun with him. Here’s his cancer ribbon…
I figured we better get a picture of Crystal in here…it is her handiwork. He really wanted one of those lines in his hair where the part is…you know what I’m talking about. But we had to break it to him gently that you can’t do that with a five-head (aka receding hair line) Poor guy.
Ok he wanted a “jarhead” hair cut, what ever that is. But at this point Crystal’s clippers started having technical difficulties (I think we wore them out) so she just had to finish buzzing it with another pair.
And onto Tracen.
Funny, Crystal gave Tracen a haircut last week. And we forgot a before photo. He got racing stripes. I told him they’d make him run faster.
Are you all still with me here? I know, but I warned you. I took lots of pictures. And when I’m fairly sleep deprived, I have lots to say.
Tracen licking the hair off the thingy (apron? gown?) there…getting more hair in his mouth.
And here’s one with dad…
Thank you Crystal for the fun and entertaining afternoon at the shop. We always have to show up after hours because we create a little racket while were there. We tried to make up for it by feeding her pizza but I’m sure that wasn’t compensation enough!
Wait you thought we were done? Oh heaven’s no! There is more!
The boys decided they needed t-shirts after hearing Grandma talk about some of the cute cancer t-shirts out there. We decided to make our own. I don’t think that was necessarily the best idea ever! But I tend to do that a lot. I bought iron on transfers. I thought they were the kind that melt the image onto the fabric but they weren’t. So about 3 printings later and 2 hours longer than originally planned their shirts are done….well Ty and Jesse’s anyway. The stuff is more like an appliqué so white on white wasn’t really working for me. So I put it on a blue background and did some stitching around the edges for extra something, I don’t know, style maybe.
They each had their own idea of what they wanted. Ty found shirts online that said “I wear pink for my grandma” that he liked. So we downloaded the appropriate fonts and here is his shirt.
Jesse just made up his own lol. He wanted his to say “I’m bald because my grandma’s bald” Hey you might as well just put it out there :) It turned out cute though!
And here they are together, wearing their shirts. I’m still working on Lincoln and Tracen’s.
They were so excited to wear them this morning. I hope no one teases them because I’m really proud of them. We talked about the possibility and what to do if someone teases them, so I think they’re prepared.
Well if you’re still with me, you are amazing. That was one dang long post!
K, now we’re don e, thanks much. The End.
