first haircut

The boys got their first haircuts on January 4th. We went to the local kid-friendly hair salon and the experience went exactly as we had planned in our heads.

Jakob chose to sit in the taxi cab and then he proceeded to scream and squirm about like a wild child.  His level of bravery drops significantly in strange places.  He is the most outgoing toddler in the world but he has to be comfortable with his surroundings.  Otherwise his emotions take control.  But to his credit there was a strange woman coming at him with scissors.  I might scream too.  The hairstylists were amazing though and did not bat an eye at a squirming and screaming child.

And then there was Alex.  You would have thought that Alex was going in for haircut #500 instead of haircut #1.  The boy did not make a noise.  He was our little professional.  Alex chose to sit in the fire truck.  And he just sat patiently as the hairstylist did her job.  He was so stinking cute!  I think Alex was going, “Ladies.  I have been begging you for a trim.  It’s about time.  Thank You.”  You would have thought Alex was going to ask the hair stylist for a shave with a straight razor after the haircut.

It is always amusing to watch the differences in parenting styles in kid centered places such as this hair salon. And this day was no different.

You had parent #1 who would not, under any circumstance, let their son, Little Jimmy, be traumatized by the hair cutting experience.  That parent was still walking around the salon calming shaggy-haired Little Jimmy down when Kara and I departed with our kids.  Then there was parent #2 who also refused to allow Little Sally to scream during the “1st Haircut” experience.  But in this situation it was because there was no way that parent #2 was going to have pictures of the “1st Haircut” experience ruined by a snotty little child.  And of course parent #2 was also still trying to get Little Sally to calm down when Kara and I departed with our kids.  And finally parent #3 actually had the calmest child in the shop.  Why?  Because Little Timmy was sitting in a drug induced sugar coma from the 25 suckers his parent gave to him prior to the haircut.  I think Little Timmy decided by the end of the haircut that he wanted to get his haircut every day of the week.  We left the hair salon at the same time parent #3 left the hair salon.

So how would you define us?

You can thank us for creating the most noise in the salon!  We were busy mumbling “sit down and be quite and get your crazy out of control hair cut … I don’t care if you don’t want to do it … you can’t have hair down to your ankles when you are six” to our precious little boy.  Okay.  That’s not true.  We weren’t actually saying that to Jakob but you better believe I was thinking it in my head.  We know our son and we knew that it would take Jakob approximately 30 seconds to completely forget about the hair cut experience once it was over.  And we were right.  All we had to do was show Jakob the indoor jungle gym and he was back to his old self.  No harm.  No foul. And Kara and I were walking out of the hair salon after only 20 minutes while parent #1 and parent #2 were still roaming around the place with their children.

So which parenting style is the “right” one?  None of them.  They all have their flaws.  And really that’s okay.  It keeps therapists in business.

I will be back soon with a monthly update.

Mary