Does the hair make the (little) man?

Before the cut...

I do not have a good track record when it comes to hair. As a child, I went one afternoon with my mom to the hairdresser to get my stick-straight hair cut and left looking like Little Orphan Annie. My teacher actually asked me if I was a new student when I came to school the next day. That traumatic experience has followed me into adulthood, making me a very gun-shy haircutee.

I dread haircuts the way other people dread the dentist. I have very little style and seem to be unable to communicate appropriately to the stylist what I want. I have thin, fine, straight hair and a very round face. If you cut it wrong, I look like a stray dog with a pie-face. This is not the fashion statement I aspire toward, and generally I just beg them to take a little off the ends and leave the rest of my hair alone.

My husband knows this about me, he has seen the results of a bad haircut and seems to fully support my "just a trim" mantra. Knowing my inability to communicate properly to anyone who wields scissors for a living, you would think he would protect our son and never allow me to take him to the salon alone. Sadly, my husband seems to have similar difficulty communicating to hairdressers and has left the salon looking like a mushroom once or twice. Once we find someone who can cut his hair properly we tend to revere this individual as at the very least, a minor god.

Needless to say, our son is somewhat out of luck when it comes to getting a haircut, and since I dread it so much, I usually wait until he looks like a Beatle wannabe before I cave and take him to the kids salon. He's two, and has only had three haircuts in his life! A week or so ago, his scraggly hair finally got to me and I had to take him in. I wanted Joe to go with me for moral support (and to help hold the child, hey he's two, sitting still is a major challenge!) but he had to work so I went this one alone.

We met Heather, and right away I started flubbing my way through an explanation of what I wanted. I was trying to say, "please clean it up a bit but keep it long." Instead, I stumbled around until she said, "Do you just want a little boy haircut?" I thankfully said yes and set about trying to keep him occupied with a Cars dvd and lollipops while she went to work.

As time passed, I started to get alarmed. I'd thought he looked like a little boy when he came in, which would mean that a snip here and a snip there would send him out looking like a better coiffed little boy. No such luck. At least an inch of hair later, my little moppet looked like a five-year-old ready for kindergarten. It was a really great haircut actually, even and well-shaped. But to me, my child looked like a shorn sheep. As I plunked down $25 I held back tears.

Once in the car, I immediately placed a call to Joe and yelled at him for letting me go alone as I tried to not hyperventilate. I considered going back in, retrieving my son's hair, and trying to glue it back on! After hanging up with Joe, I called my mother to wail. She tried to reason with me and mentioned how fast my son's hair grows. I wailed even louder and told her we would have to talk later. So we finished our errands and headed home, me hanging my head in shame as we walked in the door, certain Joe would agree and think me a horrible mother for allowing our child to get such a cut.

The thing is, Joe actually liked the cut. He thought it would grow in well and not look so shaggy. Surprisingly, my parents liked the cut as well. Apparently I'm the only one who didn't like it. But couldn't they see that those sweet little curls at the back of his neck were gone and I wouldn't be able to wrap them around my fingers when he's sitting on my lap? They talked about how clean his style was, but all I noticed was that there was so little hair to ruffle on his head as he stood beside me in line at Target. I was shocked at their reactions.

It seemed that the problem wasn't really the haircut, it was the shock I got when I saw what he will look like when he's a "big boy." And I realized that it won't be all that long until he is that big boy, and my sweet little toddler who just learned the word "mouth" will be only a memory. I know that my reaction to the haircut was out of proportion, but doesn't everyone else see how fast this kid is growing? He's already so different than he was just a few months ago, and every change we make pushes him further into the future and farther away from being my baby.

...after the cut

Ultimately, I am still waiting expectantly for his hair to grow out and those curls to come back. I'm not ready for him to be any older than two years and three months, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he stays little as long as possible. But as for whether or not its a good haircut, well I guess I will just let you decide.