First Haircut

Little S has the kind of golden, curly hair that stock photography houses go crazy for. When I posted pictures of his 2nd birthday party a few days ago, the prevailing sentiment in my feed went something like, “Such great hair!” And no one agreed more than me, his proud mama.

Except at bath. And in the morning before daycare. And before we left the house to see other human beings. And anytime is dad was in charge of hair for the day. Those moments when I had to chase Little S down, spray him up with detangler, and drag a “knot genie” (ha) through those golden curls. My eardrums may never be the same.

So, with great abashedness, we took our baby for his first haircut today. I’d been dreading it for the week and a half since I made the appointment.

Hillary greeted us sunnily, “What do you want us to do for his hair today?”

I steeled myself – probably about an inch could come off and still preserve the curl. “Oh, not too much off, just kind of tame it,” I answered meekly. “We want to keep the curl, but we want him to be able to, you know, see.” She smiled broadly and went to work.

I watched her snip snip here, snip snip there, capturing the evidence on my camera. And then, suddenly, she was done. I stared at the baby, agog.

He looked exactly the same.

I surveyed the scraps of hair on the floor and saw that she’d taken off maybe a centimeter. Dad started to speak up, to ask for more – but I swooped in. “Looks great!” I exclaimed, grabbing him out of the chair. “Thanks so much!” And we were outta there.

I know we’ll be back to our old problems in a week, two if we’re lucky, but as for today’s stay of execution – I’ll take it!