The Day Mom Officially Retired From Cutting Hair

Like most big families, we have found ways to cut corners and make the finances work. We buy groceries at Aldi and Sam's and we have a side of beef and a whole pig in our freezer (compliments of my dad). The boys all share clothes, shoes, bikes, roller blades, video games, and no one gets a new backpack or winter coat for school unless the zipper breaks.

I like to think that these type of sacrifices build character in my boys. I remember drinking powdered milk that my mother would make in a huge Tupperware pitcher. It was horrible! I shared a room with my sister and all three of us kids worked various jobs from the age of 12 (old enough for corn detasseling - which is basically taking young kids and turning them out into rows of corn that went on for miles and using them like human machinery to pull the tassels off the corn). Now that was character building!

One way that we have saved money as a family is by me cutting the boys hair. While this has saved us some cash, it has not been without a price. My oldest two boys were given a choice, either let mom cut it for free or you can pay for your own haircut where ever you want. They let me continue to cut it until they really cared about how they looked. My oldest has really thick, coarse, curly red hair and I pretty much couldn't screw it up.

There was one time when I thought I was done with his hair and he took a shower and then I looked at his head and saw this line going from one ear to the other. It was so bad. I think the phone rang half way through his cut or something, because there was surely a problem.


Our second son, Luke, gave up on me because for some reason, I always had trouble with his bangs. I only have one hairstyle in my repertoire - short, really short, Buzz cut preferred! Luke liked his hair a little longer and I just couldn't handle it. After more than one botch job, Luke has taken his "business" elsewhere. Now, he happily goes to my hair-stylist (a professional).

Well, I have just recently crossed the line of no return as I threw out my clippers, (they were rusty anyway and pulled the skin into the pinchers), the scissors, the combs, the guards - EVERYTHING GONE!

My son Joel (11 and going into Junior High in two days), begged me to "trim" his hair which had grown for several months to a very "Jonas Brothers" looking "I'm So Cool" length. Joel liked to whip his head quickly to the side in a smooth gesture to get his bangs out of his face. It was his trademark. I don't mind the longer hair. I do have a line - NO MOHAWKS, permanent color, etc... But the longer hair is fine.

The other boys (especially the older two) loved to tease Joel and call him a girl because of his long hair. It didn't phase him. He would roll his eyes at them and say, "You're just jealous."

So, with two days until school starts, I decided to sit Joel down and trim it. I started out okay, but something strange happened and it was like I couldn't stop it until it was too late. Joel wanted the bangs a little shorter and I even said, "Let's take off just a little at a time because we can always cut more, but we can't put it back once it's cut."

I was using scissors and a comb and 10 minutes into it, I was feeling myself sink further and further in the "hole" as Joel's head began to shrink into his neck. He held his body still and watched the long blond locks fall like the seeds off of cotton weed on a windy day. He glanced up at me and said, "Mom, NOT TOO SHORT."

I told him I was doing my best and that I wasn't a professional. I was trying to get the sides even and every time I would cut one side, the other would look shorter. Then I would cut more off of that side and the other one would look shorter still. It was madness!

I finally stopped before the kid was completely bald and Joel took one look and the tears came. I felt terrible! Here is my young boy, about to enter the "junior high jungle of blood sucking bullies" and I have just made him look like the biggest dork on the block! Somebody shoot me!

I told Joel to go take a shower and maybe it will look better when he gets out. It didn't. He put on a sweatshirt and put the hood up and said that he wouldn't be attending school this semester. I could home school him until Christmas was over and then he could go back.

I felt worse. I did what I never thought I would - I asked him if $20 bucks would make him feel better. He has been saving every penny doing odd jobs for an XBox 360 ($300). I thought that a $20 boost might help him forget about his botched haircut.

His deep blue eyes were barely recognizable they were so bloodshot. He looked at me and nodded that the $20 would help. He stopped crying for a moment and said, "Mom, if I need surgery someday, are you going to try and save money and do that yourself too?"

Of course not, Joel, I said as I offered him another $20. Ugh!

The next day, I was able to get him in to my hair stylist and she (a wonderful mom of three grown children) really helped sooth the pain of his short hair. She told him that she was going to just straighten it out so that as it grows out, it will all come in even and look nice - like the Jonas Brothers, she said.

That was all Joel needed (my $40 bucks didn't hurt either) to help him have the strength to face the world of Junior High even with a Bill Gates haircut!

Yes, I really did throw out all my supplies and my two youngest boys will be spared the humiliation of mom cutting their hair at those oh so tender ages!

The Cleanest Christmas Tree Ever

When you have five children, the potential for adventure lurks in every moment. We have rocks up the nose stories, fire in the oven stories, wet cement stories, but there is one DeGraaf story that has become known as "The Classic." This is the one that friends will pull me aside after church to meet their sister from Cleveland and say, "Tell her the Christmas tree story - that's my favorite!"

So, here goes...

It was a sunny mid-December day and a balmy 45 degrees here in Chicagoland. We decided it was perfect weather for going to the tree farm and chopping down our Christmas tree. We piled everyone in the car (at the time, our oldest was in junior high and our youngest was about a year old). We spent a couple hours searching the farm for just the right one (like it mattered), chopped it down, went on a hayride, drank some hot chocolate, gave the tree to the man who put it on the shaker, bound it in plastic netting and tied it to the luggage rack of our van.

We decided to take the boys to Pizza Hut. This was our very first attempt at taking our whole family to a restaurant and it was mayhem. Our little guy was fussy, the 3 year old spilled a huge glass of pop, pizza sauce was everywhere, and the wiggling was out of control!

We got back in the car and headed home.

We lived on a gravel road, so our mini-van was in constant need of a car wash. On that day, it was completely covered in dust; especially the rear window. I had purchased 100 car wash coupons at the local automatic car wash and had gotten into the habit of running the van through every time I passed the car wash.

You guessed it……I turned to Ron and said, “Hey babe, it’s a beautiful day, let’s get the car washed.” Turns out, he is just as dumb as I am and he said, “Okay.”

The car wash was jam packed with people (remember it was December and 45 degrees in Chicago - everyone was out getting the winter sludge and salt off of their vehicles). We pulled in behind 2 or three other cars. Someone else pulled in behind us and we were just waiting our turn, when this guy came walking over to the driver’s side window (I thought Ron knew him from work or something, ‘cause the guy had a big grin on his face.)

He said “Hey man, how ya doin?"

Ron said, "Pretty good."

The guy said, "You know you can’t go through the car wash," as he looked up and pointed to the top of our van.

At first, Ron looked at him with his head cocked slightly to the side as two deep folds formed between his eyebrows with a look of "Why not?"

And then reality set in for the both of us. We had an 8 foot blue spruce strapped to the roof of our vehicle. I laughed so hard I was crying! I mean, I laughed all the way home and seriously almost wet myself.

Our junior high aged son said he was going to write an essay titled “Why my parents are morons."

Holy Underwear

Getting our entire family to church on Sunday morning is a miracle nothing short of Moses and his Red Sea crossing. The weekly arrival of the DeGraaf Family at our house of worship is generally preceeded by a full blown "tribulation" (complete with nashing of teeth, and beasts with ten horns and seven heads). It's a period of suffering that only the strong survive.

I used to have a much higher standard for our pre-church prep, but over the years, my expectations have been on a steady decline. When we had our first two sons, our typical American family of four looked the part -- boys in dress pants with creases down the center, buttoned up shirts and hair combed neatly to the left.

Today, my only request is that our tribe of 5 wear clothes -- no holes and no dirt. Ok, at least I draw the line at wearing dirt to church.

I will never forget one Sunday morning when the Devil definitely was trying to keep us home that day! We got up late and as my husband got into the shower, he asked me if I would find him a pair of clean underwear. "Sure thing," I said and assured him that there was a load of clean underwear and socks in the dryer.

Wrong.

No socks and underwear in the dryer (they were towels). No clean undies on top the dryer or in the pile of clean clothes that were half stacked and half scattered on the couch. (I really need to stop folding laundry while watching TV. It's an exercise in futility as the stuff gets knocked down, folded again, and yes, even knocked down once more. )

I was running out of options as Ron was running out of hot water.............Now what?

I did what any quick-thinking and resourseful woman would do, I shuffled through the dirty clothes and found the "cleanest" pair of dirty underwear that I could. I shook them and neatly folded them in exactly the same way I have been folding Ron's boxer/briefs for almost two decades. They looked a little stretched out, so I pressed extra hard to try and iron out a few of the wrinkles and placed them on the closed lid of the toliet seat next to the shower.

"Here you go, babe." I said without another word.

I continued scrambling to get the rest of the gang in the mini-van. It was complete chaos (which has become our normal). Some of the boys were fighting, others couldn't find matching socks, one was still sleeping. Somehow, we managed to all get in the van for the 15 minute ride (I swear I could walk on fire!)

Ron was quiet for the whole ride with his lips all bunched up in a knot and a furrowed brow. We were about a minute's ride away from church and I turned to him and said, "What's wrong?"

He said, "These underwear aren't clean are they?" He was so ticked. I actually had all but forgotten about that small minor detail of the morning as I replied, "NO THEY ARE NOT!" and lifted up my shirt and said, "What are you complaining about, I am wearing MY SWIMSUIT!" (I really couldn't find ANY clean underwear!)

I was pretty sure that God was more concerned about the condition of our hearts and not so worried about the the fact that Ron was worshipping in his dirty undies and that I had my swimsuit on! After all, God has a sense of humor!!

Top 10 Ideas To Make Mammograms Fun!

This morning, I got my second mammogram EVER (2 years overdue). I wish that there was an official "U.S. Department of Mammography" to which I could make a few suggestions. I should google it.

If anyone asked me for my advice on how to improve the mammo experience, these would be my top 10...........

10. ASK if she has put on any deodorant BEFORE gripping her breasts in a vice, four times (front and side view on each side). Repeating this process once a year is bad enough! Repeating immediately because there is deodorant smearing the image, should be actionable in court.

9. Provide mood music. Something from the Smashing Pumpkins would be great!

8. Place foil wrapped chocolate coins on the gown provided.

7. Roll out a red carpet leading to the screening room with a sign painted on the door, "Nude Photo Shoot In Session."

6. Offer a large glass of wine!

5. Decorate the room with helium balloons and instruct the woman to inhale deeply and sing "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman."

4. When it is over, flash an "Applause" sign to those in the waiting area to thank her for coming.

3. Put fringe tassels on the little sticker things they put on each nipple.

2. Offer a "boobie prize" if she schedules next year's appointment as she leaves.

1. Remind her that breast cancer is the second leading cause of death in women and that mammography can increase survival rates by 50% in some cases. Early detection is the best chance a woman has for overcoming breast cancer. If you are reading this and are over 40 and have not had a mammo in the last 12 months, don't wait another minute to call your doctor and get it done. :0)