I loved Mrs. Deer’s recent post about how she cut Little Deer’s hair at home.  While there are things that I can teach myself, things I can do myself, things I am willing to go out on a limb and try, Colin’s first haircut was NOT one of those things.  Not because I am better than a home haircut in any way.  No, no.  The opposite.  I just don’t trust myself with scissors, a mess of crazy curls, an impatient toddler and the emotions that are entangled with trimming his baby locks.  I just couldn’t do it.  And so, I settled for the next best thing – a visit to the local Hair Cuttery with his dad for some male bonding over haircuts.

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Of course, before planning our big visit for Colin’s first haircut, I hopped onto Yelp to check out the local salons that cater specifically to children – KidSnips, Snippets, and the like.  All across the country, salons like this exist, and I can only assume that the reviews across America are similar to what I’ve seen locally.  Some good, but lots and lots of bad.  Bad, not because the salons are actually bad.  The widely varying reviews are because there is no predicting what will happen with a toddler stuck in a chair, surrounded by mirrors, overstimulating colors and sounds, and stranger danger lurking around the corner in the form of a lovely but terrifying lady with scissors aimed for his head.

I think that I held off doing this for so long because I was afraid of how he would react, how I would react and of how we would be better off flushing ourmoney down the toilet since there was a strong chance that he would wiggle, squirm and sob throughout the whole ordeal.  I figured we could hold off for a long while, since his hair wasn’t obstructing his view on life and hadn’t gotten too unruly.

Well, Colin’s hair had other plans, as it crept further and further into the realm of mad scientist. Mr. Confetti kept threatening to sneak off with him to chop it all off, so I knew that the only way to preserve his baby curls would be to relent to taking him in together for a trim.

Since Mr. Confetti was overdue for a haircut himself, our original plan was to venture to his salon as a family on Saturday afternoon after nap time, so we could introduce the concept of a haircut as a non-scary experience. I figured that if that went well, we could sneak across the street to a local kids’ salon so the Colin could have his turn. We made no actual appointments, since both places welcome walk-ins, and this allowed us to make a game-time call based on C’s reactions and mood.

We arrived at Hair Cuttery, and luckily there was no wait at all.  Mr. Confetti hopped right into a chair, and Colin and I sat in the chair beside him to watch.  C is 100% a daddy’s boy, and he was really sad not to get to stay in his daddy’s arms, so after a few minutes of mild whining, the stylist said it wasn’t a problem if Colin sat in his dad’s lap during the cut.  Colin beamed watching his dad in the mirror and sat contentedly while Mr. C had the clippers and scissors swipe through his dirty blond locks.  The hairdresser let Colin play with her spray bottle and some plastic clips, and then once Mr. Confetti’s cut was complete, we made a quick game time call.  We asked the stylist if we could just keep this party going and have her cut Colin’s hair as well.  She was happy to oblige.

She swung the kid’s cape around his neck, and he got a little bit nervous.  This was the moment where I thought it might have been better going to a kids’ salon, since many have televisions playing cartoons to distract the children from the actual hair cutting.  And then I thought, duh….what are iPhones for?  I pulled out my phone and clicked on the easiest video I could access – one of Colin and his dad having a tickle fight.  He. Was. Thrilled.  He totally forgot the cape, the scissors, all of it.

As the stylist sprayed his hair to dampen it and began to cut, Colin stared at the images of himself giggling up a storm, and caught the case of giggles all over again.  He watched the same giggling video about 15 times, while the scissors flew through his curls, snipping off about a half of an inch – just enough to revitalize his curls and trim the unhealthy ends.  The entire ordeal was less than 10 minutes, and he shed zero tears.  I took a few pictures, and of course, we held onto one tiny curl to take home as a memory (what we’ll do with it, I have no idea…).

While I truly dreaded getting this done, in the end, I was so happy that it went so smoothly.  It’s great to know for future cuts that a little bit of distraction and the comfort of daddy’s lap can go such a long way in keeping my temperamental toddler calm in the face of a haircut.  And my fear of the disappearance of my little baby boy was unfounded too – while he looked a bit older that day, strutting out of the salon with freshly trimmed tresses, he’ll always be my baby, haircut or not.

How was your LO’s first haircut?