The other day before work I shaved off the beard I’ve worn for the entirety of my children’s lives. They were still asleep when I left for the office.
That evening I returned home and the kids were playing in the front yard. Gray came over first, paused for a moment with a quizzical look in her big blue eyes and said, “Daddy, you shaved off your beard. You look so beautiful!”
She called Finn over. “Finn, Finn, look,” she exclaimed, “Daddy has no beard!”
He gave me a hard look over. “I don’t like it! Grow it back, Daddy!” he pleaded.
“But he looks to beautiful,” replied Gray.
“No, no he doesn’t. Grow it back. You need to have a beard, because someday I’ll grow a beard, and we’ll have beards together. With no beard, you don’t look beautiful… like at all.”