Haircuts

When you move somewhere new, it seems to always take forever to get settled.

You have to get the internet hooked up, go to the DMV for a new license plate, find a pediatrician. Amongst a laundry list of other things.

Imagine getting settled in a place that does almost all of its official business (registering, getting Visas, talking to medical receptionists, all mail correspondence) in a language you only have a rudimentary grasp of. Following rules you’ve never heard of. Rules that are to be strictly adhered to if you want to stay in the country and have things go well.

As a result, some things get put off. Or simply don’t get done.

That was the case with the boys’ hair.

Sure, there were plenty of places to go. But could I get away with pointing to a section of hair and saying “kurz” for short and “länger” for longer? And really, the boys didn’t seem to mind the longer hair. It seemed to fit in with the whole “live and let live” Berlin vibe. Several boys in Isaac’s class have hair longer than his. One, much longer.

But Ben requested a haircut before the Christmas concert later this week. Where he will not only be singing classics like “Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer” (which is less familiar to this Jewish boy than many of his classmates, even though English is their second language) with his class, he will also be performing on stage with his hip hop group (to Nutcracker Swagger in case you were wondering).

So after school, we wandered into a barber shop that was the closest to our tram stop, a place I’d been eyeing because most of the barbers were sporting the “in” haircut with full beards. So hip.

We walked in and I went up to the first employee to greet us and explained to him that “wir haben kein Termin, aber…” (we have no appointment, but) and let him interrupt me to explain in German for us to sit and we’d be seen in a few minutes. It seemed pretty straight forward, like GreatClips back in the States.

Then Ben got nervous. This place was a lot different than the GreatClips in Decatur, GA that he’d been going to.

The barbers were super cool, most of Turkish background, I would guess. And there were raps videos on the TV. Guys were getting their eyebrows threaded (I doubt he caught that). Plus, they were the only kids there.

I calmly told him that it would only be a short wait and we started looking at haircuts on Pinterest, as a picture is worth a 1,000 words, to find one to show the barber.

Meanwhile, Isaac kept telling me that he wasn’t going to get a haircut. I was fine with this. The boys were differentiating. Ben would have short hair. Isaac would have long. A-OK.

{Ben’s before shots}

But as soon as Ben’s hair was done and the barber was putting hair wax on it, Isaac decided he wanted the same cut. Sure thing!

{Ben after – there’s our boy again. Notice Isaac’s reflection in the mirror.}

{Isaac’s before shots. Notice Ben checking out his hair in the mirror reflection.}

I have to say that our newly 6 year old boy did quite well sitting in the chair as the barber used his clippers on his hair. Last time he had a haircut, almost six months ago, he squirmed and laughed and almost walked out with half a cut as the stylist was losing patience.

{Isaac after}

As you can see, he did great and left with a huge smile.

We even walked out with a jar of wax to keep them looking slick and styled.

One more step to feeling settled. Check. ✔️