...brushing by...

I have the most boring hair ever.

Stick straight and fine as can be.

I wear it down, and keep it long.

I alternate between a center part and a side part.

Rarely will you find me with it up, or back, or any kind of anything.

It doesn't hold curl...not without tons of product at any rate.

So you can probably imagine my surprise-delight-confusion combo when first my son's hair started to grow into the soft, loose curls of his toddlerhood.

When he was born I remember staring at him, as all mothers do, analyzing what parts of this new creature came from me and what from the other half of his gene pool.  His hair, it seemed, was determinedly mine: jet black and stick straight and fine as spiders' silk.  But as he grew, the black melted away into chocolate brown, and the straight lines curved and corkscrewed.  They would twist right round my finger when I brushed his hair and in the sunlight, spark glimmers of gold and red.  I wore my hair in braids then, my "mom-do"  and envied him his curls.  

Fast forward through the years and all the haircuts, and those curls gave way to waves.  The perfect hair...the compromise between straight and curly.  Such hair is wasted on a boy, I think to myself sometimes.  Rich chocolate brown full of natural highlights, thick and lustrous.

The battle line.

Oh yes, that hair is the battle line.  He likes it long.  That's okay.  The bangs though...the bangs that hang straight down across his eyes.  Those?  He hides behind them, I know.  I understand.  It's hard to be him at school.  I'd hide, too.

I brush them out of his face constantly.  I want to see those flashing blues of his.  He'll toss his head from time to time, shaking them loose from his eyelashes.   Then flop...right back where they started.

I trim them whenever I can.  Little snips here and there, more frequently then he'd like.  Always a rousing chorus of complaints before-during-after.

Brushing.  Another battle.  "Brush it back." I tell him.  "Brush it back from your face and let the waves settle naturally."  I know that when it's clean it curls up and out and when it's not, it curves in.  "Brush it back." I say, every morning after he's towel dried it.  Every morning he scrapes the brush across his scalp, pulling it all forward from crown to nose.   He emerges from the bathroom with this wide brown swath cutting off half his face.  "I don't know how" he says when our eyes meet.  That little drum behind my left eye starts pounding away as I think of the countless times I've shown him.  15 years of brushing his hair.  Brushing it back and flipping the ends.  I do it again, in front of the mirror so he'll see.  He doesn't watch.  I fix it, just so.  I grouse inside, that I have better things to do, but secretly love these moments when I'm still of use.   Before I've even put the brush away, his fingers sneak up and start fussing with it, pulling the hair back down to his face.

Sometimes, now, when I want to take his photo, I lean in close and blow the hairs away from his eyes.  A quick breath, then snap before he "fixes" it. 

Last night he had his volunteering session at the library.  Homework was done.  Dinner was rushed.  Time was up, and I bustled about with clean-up while urging him to brush his teeth and hair and get his shoes on.  Dishes in the sink...sneakers laced...purse grabbed... 

Then...wait...

I stood by the door waiting, while he finished up.  The clock ticked.  I stepped back in and walked through to the kitchen.  Saw the bathroom door open and his face in the mirror.  He didn't notice me.  I stood there, at the edge of the table and watched as he brushed his hair.  Down.  Down from top to nose.  I think I sighed.  He put the brush down and I started to move.  Stopped when his head went down, thinking "Oh no, not another bloody nose!" (They've been frequent again.)  His head went down and he shook it...up and down, side to side, all those neat little lines fluffing back up.  Head up, brush in hand again.  Repeat.  I watched, barely containing a giggle.  He brushed it down and shook it out, over and over.  Then finally something must have looked okay in the mirror, because he put the brush away.  Then I watched, those giggles erupting now, as he picked two clumps of hair at the sides of his head and pulled them up and out.  Repeating the maneuver again and again, making little sections of hair fly up.  Another shake of the head.  Then a swipe at the bangs, first to the right and then a twist up.  He jumped when he walked out and saw me standing there, startled.  I burst into a laugh and choked if off.

"I've never seen anything funnier in my life!" I gasped out.

He looked confused.

I said "What was that about..." and he replied "You told me to brush my hair." 

"Yes, brush.  I didn't know it would be so involved.  What was that?  The brush~muss~fluff?"

"I was trying to get it to look like the look I'm going for."

"What look is that?"

"The way it looks when it's clean.  But it doesn't like to do that at 7pm."

Out the door then.  Into the car.  Off to the library.

I giggled the whole way, replaying the scene in my head.

Brush.

Muss.

Fluff.

He got out when we arrived.  Walked in by himself.  I look in the rear view mirror, pulling out.  Saw my hair.  Pulled a section forward.  Pushed it back behind my ear.

I have the most boring hair ever.

His, though, is wild and wonderful...and apparently willful.

Just like him!