My Haircut from Tristan

This afternoon as I was playing chess with Hayden (he won) Tristan came up behind me and started playing with my hair.  He said he was going to give me a haircut as he ran his fingers through my hair and flipped it around; I said that would be great and continued with the chess game.  A few moments passed and Tristan bolted out of the room, and I kept playing (knight to D4 or nd4).  The next think I remember was hearing a “schwit” sound, and then another.  Oh my gosh!  Tristan was really cutting my hair. 

I turned around and he was proudly standing there with his scissors in hand, and smile on face.  I wasn’t mad but I screamed because I didn’t know what else to do.  I looked down and there was a pile of clean hair on the floor.  I ran my fingers through my hair and out came another clump.  Just as I began to scream again I looked at Tristan and his smile melted into utter shame.  He began to cry…uncontrollably.  He stared to run off but I grabbed him and cradled him in my arms saying “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m not mad, I love you.”  He could not stop crying and begged me to let him go to his room to be alone.  I obliged, but only for a few minutes. 

As I walked into his room he hid his face in the bed covers and wept.  I curled up next to him and kissed his head, stroked his back and just cuddled.  Finally after what seemed like an eternity he calmed down enough to tell me he was sad and he would always feel sad from now on.  My heart was breaking and I wasn’t sure what to say.  (my assurances that I wasn’t mad or upset weren’t working).  I realized that his reaction wasn’t about how I was feeling, rather what he was feeling.  Total sadness. 

This was a great opening for us to talk about feelings (yes, republicans have and talk about feelings).  I tried to explain that feelings come and go; that he may be feeling sad now, but sadness would go away and happy would “come in” (pointing to his heart) or silly, or mad, or poopy (the poop word always makes him laugh and I was desperate to make him laugh- it did the trick). 

Now that he was smiling again I challenged him to a game of chess and off we went.  Happy had come in.