This was my week.  Full of the impossibleness you only realise exists when you have a Toddler crying for a big hug and a newborn wanting her Mummy.  Every tiny piece of my day seems impossible.  Sleeping.  Eating.  Showering.  Three Minutes to myself.  The Laundry.  Getting dinner on the table.  Bathing the kids.  Peeing.

So going to get the Toddler a haircut, now that his hair is at the point of being wayyy past needing one, is not just an impossible task but a frickin’ courageous one. 

It consists of packing snacks, drinks, and all the other usual’s in the nappy bag.  Trying to get the kids in the car on a schedule just to get to the appointment in time, is enough to drive me up the wall.  We’ve got toys and books and video’s, to keep him distracted and pre-occupied.  Bulging out of the double pram that he will no longer sit in because he is two.

Getting to the appointment on time, we are met with a wait.  Because that’s exactly what you want with the two year old.  Eating away at the minimal time you have when they are cool, calm and collected is absolutely the last thing you need.  Exactly why you made an appointment in the first place.  To speed up the process.  Minimal impact on everyone involved.

I spent that 10 minutes showing my Toddler all the people getting haircuts.
Me: ‘Look, you’re going to get a haircut too!  Just like Daddy does!’
Toddler: ‘No I not getting a haircut!’

This is going well.

Meanwhile, my angel baby, just sleeps.  That child, is my absolute saving grace.

The appointment, however, just like the one before, went extremely well.  I am proud that my little man will sit still and watch a video, eat his sultana’s and muesli bars, with minimal fuss.  Last time we were at a hair appointment I practically skipped out of the salon, ‘He did SO WELL!’ I exclaimed to all the hair dressers and the owners.  A few tears and a fed up little boy who just wanted to run after being cooped in a chair for fifteen minutes, was a great success.  I’m sure all Mum’s agree with me, that a few tears, a hair cut, and a quiet little boy sitting watching a video on a hair dressing salon is a great success.

This appointment though, about 2 minutes before his hair cut would have been finished, some water was sprayed in his ear, and he did get upset.  He did want to leave.  Like any Toddler would.  With a few snips to be done, I sat down with him this time, in the hope that we could get the last few cuts and be gone.

Angel baby.  Still sleeping.

Instead, we were met with a request from the owner.  ‘I think you should take your child and leave.  Let him calm down.  Maybe come back in ten minutes when he is better.’

I think you should take your child and leave.

Umm excuse me what now?

I looked at my Toddler and I looked at my pram, with my sleeping angel of a baby, and, as any Mum would, wondered how the hell I would leave with my Toddler and come back later.  When he was calm?  How would I get my Toddler back into this place after he’s had water sprayed in his ear?  And I felt like I assumed those Mother’s feel, who are breastfeeding in a restaurant, or at the shops, and are asked to leave.  Like an impostor.  Like I’m not fit to be out and about in a public place.

Now, incredibly embarrased, I get up to leave.  I pay, what I assume was for a full haircut, but I couldn’t tell as I was trying to wrangle my Toddler.  Can I take this time to remind you all that I have a Toddler.  Shock.  Horror.  Disbelief.  That I have one, and that this is what Toddler’s do.  They don’t like sitting still.  They like to run.  And jump.  And play.

While waiting for the longest Paypass process of my life, the owner laughs off my apology, whilst trying to get my purse and wrangle the child.  ‘I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you!’ she exclaimed.

Except I’m not laughing, I say.

My husband goes and gets his hair cut the next day.  The owner says, ‘your son was in yesterday and had a hissy fit I hear!’

A hissy fit is far, far, FAR from what my child had.

In all seriousness, if I got water squirted in my eye, or if I didn’t like my hair, and if I decided to cry about it, which supposedly now, is socially unacceptable, would you ask me to leave?

I have been going to this hair dresser for a long time.  Hell, if I count back, I’m pretty sure I have been going to the same salon for a whole decade.  I go there, my Mum goes there, my husband and now my son.  I have been there getting my hair done in peace and quiet, when a children’s haircut comes in, where the kids are absolutely beside themselves about the process and making the whole salon know about it.  For more than two minutes.  For the entire haircut.

It’s safe to say, they no longer have our business.
In a world where we can’t accept the kids playing up in the shops, even whilst they are being disciplined and kept in line, in a world where we can get our hair products delivered online, our groceries and our clothes, where I can duck up the road to a girlfriend who can do my hair without the bells and whistles of a salon, I will now confine myself back to home.  So I don’t put you out.  So I don’t put the public out.  So once again I don’t feel the judgement, feel like an imposter, like I’m not fit for a public place.

I’m so sick of all these things people say us parents are supposed to be.
‘Kids grow up too fast these days’
‘Let them be little!’
‘Kids have no respect for the elderly’
‘Parents shouldn’t discipline their children in public.’
‘Kids are so badly behaved at restaurants, they shouldn’t be here!’
‘Look at that child on the iPad, isn’t it disgusting that parent’s don’t interact with their children these days.’

Which one is it?  We parents are confused.  Why can’t we just leave the parents alone, and leave the children alone, just to be.  Let them decide.

Without your judgement.  How easily you can make a bad day so much worse.
Just from your judgement.

Have any other Mum’s been made to feel this way in a public place?