Have you ever had to google “How to get vaseline out of hair?”

Or: All I want for Christmas is my child not to look like an alien cancer patient.

Or: Wow, his Christmas pictures are going to look like crap.

Or: Sure! I’m SURE this will be funny later!

Or: At least he’s got a darn cute face.

Or: Why we now call him (bald) Eagle.

(In case you found this by googling “How to get vaseline out of hair: YOU CAN’T. Good luck.)

So. I thought that the day before ‘the incident’ was kind of hectic:

This was “Hey! Mom’s cleaning out the pantry! Let’s throw the gallon sized bag of foam letters all over the family room! Woo-hoo!” If I should have learned anything about being a mom by now it should be: if you think today can’t get worse, you’re in for some FUN!

This is what Jake looks like right now:

Go ahead. Compare pictures. Notice what’s different? Today he has not one piece of hair on his head. This whole fun morning started when I was talking to my mom and Jake walked into the room looking like this:

 Yeah.  In the first picture, it doesn’t look so terrible.  But in the second picture?  Yeah.  That’s bad.  Easily a 2″ thick layer of slime.  On his hair.  On his face.  On his hands.  On his arms.  On his bed.

So, yeah. I saw him.  Froze, freaked out momentarily, and then had him pose for pictures, because really – would anyone believe how bad it was?  No.  This was good in a very bad way.  I instructed Jacob to “Sit.  Very Still.  Do not touch anything.  Nothing!” while I quickly googled “how to get vaseline out of hair”.  Sadly, there are many, many entries.  Sadly, they are all crap.

I ran upstairs with Jacob, woke up Nathan because I needed HELP!, and started combing out the vaseline.  I could have almost refilled the entire tub with what I got off that comb.  After I combed everything out that I possibly could, there was still an incredibly thick layer of slime.  And when I say “incredibly thick” I do not mean “rub a thick layer of vaseline on your skin and that’s what it felt like.”  No.  I mean, it feels like I never combed anything out.  There was that much left.

Now came the cornstarch.  I poured it all over his head, massaged it in, and let it sit awhile.  Then I threw Jake into the shower with Nathan and had him rinse it out, and then shampoo him with a mixture of baby shampoo and baking soda.  It felt like we hadn’t done a thing.  We continued the cornstarch/shampoo dance for at least 5 or 6 rounds to no avail.  In between rounds, I’d run downstairs and see if google would magically give me new advice this time.

No.

What I did see more and more of, though, were stories like this one: “no matter what we did to get the vaseline out of my daughters hair, it didn’t work.  Her hair was thick and greasy for over a month.”  Not kidding.  Over a month.  After I read that about 10 times, I believed it.  And I knew what we had to do.

I went upstairs and told Nathan to give up: we were shaving Jacob’s head.  Nathan tried to protest, saying that we’d just give it a day or so and try again.  Well, our one set of couches are new – the set that Jake lies all over when he watches TV.  And I’m not about to let them be ruined by vaseline.  I was also not fond of the idea of trying to get the vaseline off of all his clothes, his pillow, and anywhere else he’d put his head.  No.  We were shaving his head.  It would grow back (hopefully, hopefully, hopefully) in the same amount of time it would take the vaseline to work it’s way out.  And, plus, Jacob was absolutely done in the shower after almost an hour.  He hates to have his hair washed in the first place, so this was just torture.

The hair cutting process was done in two stages.  First I cut everything off I could get with scissors:

 

 Then came the clippers – that somhow, magically, did not become ruined in the process.  Then came one final round with the cornstarch to absorb the rest of the slime:

 So that is how my child came to look like this (yes, I know the counter top is messy – I’ve been busy, you see – busy shaving heads and hiding every possibly “dangerous” thing in the house.  Busy!):

and this:

 Josh is the only one who loves Jake’s new hair cut.  He keeps rubbing Jacob’s head and laughing:

(Yes, my kids are lying on a dog bed.  The dog bed we just bought for Tioga for Christmas.  The dog bed that Josh will not get off of.)

To answer some FAQs:

1) Yes, I’m aware that the temperature here has not hit 20 many days this week.  Yes, I know that his head will be cold.  Yes, I have a cap for him to wear. (asked by…everyone)

2) No, we didn’t cut his hair like that for fun.  (And, library lady, I heard everything else you said about mom’s watching their kids carefully as I walked away from the desk.  Thanks for that.)

3)  No, he is not sick.

4)  No, I didn’t cry.  I had a very difficult time make the first cut, and I just about teared up.  But no, I didn’t cry, unlike my mother-in-law.

At least he’s a boy, right?