Trim Day

Quick.. towel wrapped round,
spray bottle ready, choc'late
chips, brush and scissors. 

The ingredients for a Ben Haircut.  Spot a decent mood, encourage him to sit still and straight, spray hair wet, brush hair, remind him to sit straight, get scissors, straighten his back, start cutting, give him a chocolate chip, remind him to straighten his back, distract him from a sudden impulse he has to make a phone call with a chocolate chip, hack as fast as you can and hope for the best.  I really thought it wasn't going to work today as we had only done the fringe and two snips to the side when he got really agitated about his respite care next week, he's seen the schedule and he knows he's going to a park and then baking on Monday but all of a sudden he wanted to know what order everything was going to happen and demanded I call them.  I have a policy of not promising anything I'm not going to follow through on and I knew I couldn't call about this on a Saturday, also I can't set a precedent for him that he can know every little detail because life doesn't work that way, even when everyone is in his corner and trying to provide plans and stability, so I fudged and cajoled and distracted and remarkably did get his hair cut all the way around without a meltdown and with all ears in tact.  Go me :-)  I did ask him to smile for the photo but he does a crinkled face when you ask him to smile so I rejected his attempt and asked him just to think about something nice instead, it resulted in medium success on the facial expression but shows his hair is broadly straight (from the front!)
In the afternoon we went for a walk in the woods and did some gardening.  Not really my thing but our lovely magnolia tree was being strangled by some brambles so I sprang to the rescue, just this once!
In other news, we had Jehovah's witnesses at the door this morning and I politely said I was looking after my son and I didn't want to talk about religion at the door but one of them recognised me from walking Leo in the motorway woods, I think he also recognised Ben and saw the difficulty with having people at the door, so they backed away which I was grateful for.. but then this afternoon we bumped into the exact same guy the second we entered the woods, I don't remember ever seeing him before and I thought that was a very weird coincidence!!!  Is the universe telling me to talk to Jehovah's witnesses :-) or am I being watched??!  I'm concerned either way!