A Wild Hair... (and the reactions!)

When I first met Brian he was sporting a goatee, then after we got engaged in the fall he grew it out to a full beard. He is the kind of man who has a 5 o' clock shadow at 9:30 in the morning. (It only takes him about 3 days to grow a full beard...) So he almost always has had full facial hair. The first time he shaved after I met him was the night before we got married. Yeah. I showed up to the temple to a complete stranger! It really weirded me out and then I spent the rest of our honeymoon with a rash on my face because he started to grow it out the next day. I told him if he ever shaved it all off again he couldn't kiss me until it grew in enough to be soft.

The next time he shaved it all off was an accident about six months later. He had just gotten his first sleep apnea machine and was having a hard time getting a good seal with the mask. Without really thinking it all the way through, he decided he could just shave a little bald patch under his bottom lip. It looked like a second smile. Not going to work. There was nothing for it but to shave it all off and start over again. (And no, he did not get to kiss me...) When he first came out to show me what he had done, I couldn't stop laughing at how silly he looked. I thought he was just going to shave it all but he had fun with it first.

Tonight he decided (pretty much out of the blue...) that he wanted a change after 8 years of always having a beard or goatee. So he recreated what he had done last time he shaved, and this time I got photographic evidence. Just in case he ever toys around with the idea of leaving the house with just a mustache, I can prove to him that it is a bad idea!

What we are used to seeing Daddy look like:


First it was the Fu-Man Shouldn't:


Then came the 'Stache: ...words fail me.


Last, but not least, the Charlie Chaplin:


And now something that not one of our children has ever seen, A Bare-faced Daddy!:


He is such a baby face! Or maybe he just looks younger without all the grey in the beard...

I am really not sure how the kids will respond to this when they wake up, it is a major transformation!

(Edited to add on 10/26) The kids' reactions:

Jake took it in stride, he laughed and said he thought Brian looked "really different." Lila was very unsure at first. Jake handed her to Brian and she just kept looking confused and touching his chin and cheeks. It upset Evie the most. She took one look at her dad and screamed, "Your beard is all GONE!" I think she thought someone stole it while he was sleeping. Apparently she couldn't stop talking about it in nursery class and just told everyone over and over, "My daddy shaved all of his beard off! It's all gone! He doesn't have a beard any more!!!" When we got home from church she sat down on the couch by Brian, looked at him for a minute then said, "You look weird with no hair Dad." Brian laughed and asked her, "Don't you think I look good?" Her reply, "No." A little while later she came down to talk to me while I was sewing and said in a forlorn little voice, "Mom, my Daddy is just no good with no beard." And last night at my dad's Brian was the last one in the door. Evie had been talking a mile-a-minute telling Pa Dave how her dad had shaved off all his beard. When Brian came down the hall, she looked at him then ran to him screaming for joy, "Daddy! Your beard comed back!" (I told you his beard grows ridiculously fast...)

I let him kiss me good night right after he shaved on Saturday night (early Sunday morning... whatever) and told him that would have to last him until it grew back in. He asked, "What if I decide to stay clean shaven for awhile?" I told him I gave it less than a week before he decides shaving every day is too much work. I had to laugh at the number of times he complained about how cold his chin was. Poor baby.