My step-daughter has the most beautiful long, golden, curly hair….that is, when it’s brushed. When I hug her hello, automatically I eye up the tangled dreadlocks and decide that one more night’s sleep can’t make it much worse, so decide to go into battle in the morning.
This isn’t just a one-woman battle. A couple of months after her dad and I got together, I realised the tears, tantrums and hands-on-scalp, while screaming, could be seen as ‘evil step-mum’ behaviour, so it was better to hand over the weapons (hairbrush and comb) to her dad.
Like most nine year olds my step-daughter is pretty switched on and naturally, when not reminded to brush her teeth or hair, morning and night, will “forget”. Her usual response to her messy hair is, ” but mummy hasn’t got a brush”. How do you respond to that? Plus there’s a fortnight’s worth of tangles to tackle.
Normally she and my husband get home (after the 200 mile trip from her mum’s) late on Friday nights, so Saturday mornings always begin with the Battle of the Brush. Only for the last five years since she’s been in nursery and school, the situation has developed into The Battle with the Bugs.
Her mum’s response to nits isn’t perhaps what you might call traditional. Instead of getting a comb or lotion, why waste the time? You can always just shave the underneath of her head… Yup an an undercut. Just what every little girl dreams of…..shaved hair. More like GI Jane than Barbie. Three years down the line, of course the undercut has grown back but the nits still haven’t gone away.
A few months ago my step-daughter was again trying to hide her hair from us (not that unusual in a child with an aversion to brushes and combs) after mummy had again tried to beat the nits. This time mummy’s weapon of choice…..why the kitchen scissors of course.
But spare a thought for my husband, who was freaked out by the fact that his own daughter was more worried about his reaction to her hair being lopped off, than she was worried about her locks having been chopped. “Mummy said you’d be cross when she was cutting it”. My husband was speechless.
We’ve glossed over the fact that the hair has been chopped, trying not to make a big deal out of it, and pre-warned the hairdresser not to gasp, when he lifts her hair up to cut the underneath.
To get rid of the nits, well your truly ended up holding a four-hour combing marathon (yup two and a half DVDs) taking every nit and egg out of her hair, section by section. You’ve probably never seen kitchen paper darken so quickly as I wiped the lice off the comb. She was too thoughtful to ever complain about itching and scratching….whereas I, just writing about it, can’t say the same.
