The Big T-O
Today's the day our son Robbie turns two! It's hard to believe it's been two years already, but as they say, time flies...
Today also marks the first time he'll be getting a haircut. Call it some strange tradition, but my parents didn't cut my hair until I was two, and I thought it'd be fun to do that with my son. It's interesting to see just how many people assume that he's a girl because of his long curls. Even with full-on boy clothes and his boy toys, we still get comments like "she's so cute" and "what's her name?" all the time. I don't think he's too pleased with that...
So tonight, we're going to go get haircuts. All of us. It'll be a family haircut night! Who says we don't do things together? While Carol and I plan to get cuts, the main focus is going to be Robbie and whether or not he'll sit for it. Where there's scissors involved and a squirming child, there's always a parent on high alert.
So, for reference, here's a before photo, taken earlier in the day.
Notice the playful curling effect in the back and how it's countered by the akward look he's giving? I had a sneaking feeling that he knew what was coming and couldn't wait to get it over with.
As soon as I got home, it was back in the car we went, on our way to none other than the local Supercuts. Yeah, SUPERCUTS. That's right. I go there. What of it?
When we get there, they take us immediately, which is good when you have a child with a runny nose who's tired from chasing a birthday balloon all day. We explained that this was his first haircut, and we'd like to take some photos and hang on to a lock of hair. The barber(?) said it'd be fine and took it slow getting Robbie started. Little snip here, little snip there...
Getting him to look straight ahead could've been a challenge, were it not for the fascination that I'm sure all toddlers have with mirrors. That and our words of encouragement actually kept him contained for a while. This was going to be a cakewalk after all...
That is, until the clippers came out. We managed to keep Robbie calm enough to give the barber a chance to break them out, you know, for the detailing. Right off the bat we could tell Robbie was put off by the sound. Then once they came in contact with his head, he immediately pulled away. But we reasoned with him the only way you can reason with a child. With candy!
It was going good until the barber needed Robbie to look down. I made the mistake of showing him a picture I took on the camera's screen. Then he wanted to hold it. Then he wanted to push buttons. Then he wanted to take pictures. A tug of war began and afraid he was going to start moving around too much, I had to just take it from him. That just about set him off, because then he couldn't sit still, he couldn't reach his balloon, you name it.
Honestly, there was only a minimal amount of restraint required, partly because we expected him to not want to sit through it, but mostly because we figured that he'd done his best and had reached his threshold and that would be good enough.
Of course, after it all, he was bouncing all over the joint, running around playing with his balloon. My biggest fear was that he'd get only halfway through and start fighting it, forcing us to either cause a ruckus trying to hold him down, or let him go with only a partial haircut. I don't know about you, but I think it turned out looking pretty good.
I just wonder when we'll be going back...
