The curly-haired lunatic

My youngest son has a mad mop of wild and curly hair. He inherited these curls from his father and my own father, who both sported what can only be described as big fancy ringlets when they were small – we have the pictures to prove it.
The child was born without a solitary hair on his head, he was a baldy coot for six months before a mass of blonde curls materialised almost overnight. Everyone we meet comments on the child’s locks. I smile and agree that they are indeed gorgeous; I don’t divulge that a crack team of hair stylists (well one super stylist – me) were required to make him look even semi-human before we left the house. Nor do I tell them that there was much screaming, much tugging of combs, much frantic detangling and much cursing to give him the appearance of just stepping out of a saloon.
When we were kids my sister had beautiful curly hair, which she would spend hours trying to straighten. When she was young – back in the olden days you understand – straighteners, much like colour televisions and motorised vehicles hadn’t yet been invented. So the old head on the ironing board trick worked wonders for her.
I used to think her mad. Having straight hair I longed for her curly locks, spent nights sleeping in a sitting position wearing ridiculous rollers, using lotions and potions and singeing my hair with curling tongs to little or no effect.
Now I can kind of understand her curly-haired frustration, having spent months trying to tame and manage the snarlicious wad of hair-tangle that has grown atop my boy’s head.
The husband says be done with it and give him a short, back and sides military-style cut like the other two. But I can’t stand to let those delicious curls go.
I’ve tried everything to tame it. The leave-in conditioner just makes him look like a stereotypical TV version of a second-hand car salesman (don’t they always seem to have greasy curly hair?) or even an Italian football manager. The specialist, expensive detangling spray which promised to give him a sleek and smooth, manageable ‘do’ instead gave him the rather startling appearance of a lunatic with an elaborate and pungent, super sticky candy floss hat. It didn’t say a word about that in the instructions. Looking around at young bucks these days though, the backcombed bird’s nest atop one’s head look is apparently all the rage. Perhaps we’re just a bit behind the times fashion wise, and our youngest child is truly fashion forward.
But it’s not just the appearance. I only have to mention the word brush and the child runs screaming in terror in the other direction. And is it any wonder? With the appliance of a brush his hair takes on a whole new appearance, think Sideshow Bob on a particularly awful hair day.
Whereas my other boy’s hair responds meekly to a swift brush and go, the smallest boy’s locks demand extreme attention, bribery and much coaxing to behave, rather like the boy himself.
There will come a time when we have to take the child to the barbers and have those gorgeous curly locks shaved off and with it, much like Samson he will lose the power of cuteness. I dread that day. I dreaded it so much with the other boys that I attempted to regain some control over their cuteness and chopped their hair myself – with the result that they both took on the appearance of scary Dame Judi Dench look-alikes, not cure at all. I had to drag those boys, under the cover of woolly hats to the barbers for the standard £5 ‘my ma went mad with the scissors and this is the horrific result. I know, I look simply ridiculous, please, please fix me’ do.
But the curls stay for now, and so does the cuteness.