Charm, hair and the big work.

As any parent will tell you, children seem to have an innate ability to charm. It starts at birth, really. One moment your lovely bride or significant other is in the throes of childbirth which, you both learn a little too late, is an experience that makes you confront the very nature of existence and the fact that you may have terribly misjudged the direction in which you wanted your life to go.

But of course this existential crisis is short lived, because a moment later the doctors present a tiny little person for your approval, a human being that you made. It’s a momentous event for everyone, but as much as anything else it signals the beginning of a long relationship with a little person that will be based largely on a game of cat and mouse in which you try to get them to stop spreading peanut butter in their hair while they try to charm you into not being annoyed.

Although there are few defenses against a youngster that is determined to use his innate charm to prevent you from keeping him neatly shorn, (the only real solution to the peanut butter quandary) we found one good way that also serves a greater purpose.

The folks at the St. Baldrick’s Foundation have been raising funds to fight childhood cancer since 2000 when they had the novel idea to ask volunteers to shave their heads. The “shavees” are all good sports who participate in one of the local events held every March during which volunteer barbers, shavees, friends and family get together and have a fun time.

So if you’re the sort who likes to walk, run, bake cupcakes or whatever to help with the big work, why not add a little something new to your repertoire? It’s a fun day out, and if nothing else it’ll save you the bother of negotiating yet another haircut with the little charmers in your life.

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Oh yeah, and it makes for good entertainment too. Our younger boy as shavee last year:

(And if you insist on being a complete social media nerd, you can find St. Baldrick's on twitter and facebook. Go figure.)