On Monday evening we geared up to have Nick get his very first haircut. After several months of anxiety on my part, I finally caved and agreed it was time. Not that I want to part with his sweet baby curls, because believe me, a huge part of me feels like I'll be cutting off his last little bit of babyhood and pushing him straight into toddler town. But let's be honest. He's already there. He spends minutes on end toddling around the living room in circles. He bangs toys on the floor with gusto, gets into things he knows he shouldn't, and has mini-meltdowns if he doesn't get his way...which is usually when he wants to read a book and we don't read it to him immediately, because "holy crap, if we don't read 'Ding-Dong, Elmo's Here!' RIGHTTHISSECOND I am going to explode!"
Not to mention we're all getting a little tired of being told "she is SO cute" when we're out in public. I'm sorry, did you not see the words "Mommy's little MAN" emblazoned across his all blue, extra-boyish attire? Seriously...I've never dressed Nick in anything REMOTELY gender-neutral (minus some of the seriously sweet, yellow & green, ducky & frog ensembles when he was a newborn, but seriously, who can tell a newborns gender?). Also, it's getting really frustrating having to wet his hair every morning to try and combat the serious bedhead he acquires during the night. And since he's only 14.5 months old, I feel like it might be too early (and considered a form of torture?) to employ the "shove his head under the kitchen faucet in hopes of taming that mane" tactic that my dad used on my brother from ages 8-16. Hey, whatever works, right?
Anyway, all this to say, we got to the barber shop - plopped Nick on Todd's lap, along with "Ding Dong, Elmo's Here!" to keep him preoccupied, and got to work.
Nick was only slightly apprehensive at first, but mostly interested in the cartoons they put on the TV for him, and ringing that dang doorbell on his book.
Scott (Todd's barber, and the only guy I'll trust to get near my sweet toddler's hair with a set of clippers) began by combing out Nick's hair. Which Nick loved, because he loves to comb hair. Naturally, Nick needed to hold his own comb -- and Scott happily obliged.
Scott even went so far as to show Nick the clippers he would be using, and let Nick touch them (on the non-sharp end of course).
Of course, Nick was perfect the whole time. But as I tried to snap pictures with our $1,500 camera (you know, the one we HAD to have the day before Nick was born, so we could document his every move, yet we end up using our cell phone cameras 9 times out of 10), the dang thing wouldn't work. Why? Oh, because the memory card was sitting at home.
We did what any logical family would do. Let Todd get his haircut, watched Nick toddle around the barbershop, stopping every now and then to put his hands on the floor and cover them in man-hair (Right? So gross. Mom of the year!) , and called it a day. But all was not lost because we did get to have dinner at the nicest chick-fil-a in the state - a total win if you ask me!
So, obviously Nick didn't get his curls cut off. And now I'm totally wavering on trying again. Not because I don't think he'll behave -- in fact I'm 100% confident now that he will be a champ for his first real haircut. I'm just wondering if this might be a sign..."don't cut off his curls yet! You're not ready!" kinda deal. For now, I'm not in any rush to get back to the shop and get his haircut.
But ask me how I feel again the next time someone calls him a girl. Betcha we'll be in that shop faster than you can say "Ding Dong, Elmo's Here!"
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