Playing Barber Shop

Our weekend plans are staying limited this time, but not for any real reason, just because we're feeling lazy. Matt asked me this morning what I wanted to get done this weekend, and the only thing I could answer was, "Cut Patrick's hair."

We've needed to cut it for ages. It's growing over his ears, which seems to annoy him sometimes when it tickles his ears. The back of it always curled over his collar, when he wore one. The final straw came when that lock that falls over his forehead kept falling into his eyes. Yes, it was that long.

Matt has a pair of generic clippers and brought it out ages ago to start getting Patrick acquainted with the sound of it so that he wouldn't be nervous when we finally got around to cutting his hair with it. I'd been adamant about taking him somewhere for his first haircut, but the more I thought about it, it did sound much easier to take care of it ourselves. How hard can it be to clip it all one length with the clippers?

It turns out it's much more difficult than it sounds. Naturally Patrick kept squirming, but he also screamed this blood-curdling, fingernail-splitting scream any time I attempted to hold him still. His lack of cooperation wasn't the real problem, though; his hair was. I didn't realize such baby fine hair would be so hard to cut. It kept sliding right out of the trimmers. We tried it wet and dry, letting it lie flat and holding it up. With much patience and several breaks to recompose ourselves, it finally all ended up one length. Mostly, anyway.

Here's this morning's before picture:
Yesterday's pictures are even better before pictures because of how unkempt his hair looks.

Here he is after the haircut:

Spitting in imitation of Daddy

Smiling at Daddy

Now Matt and I are both experiencing haircut remorse. Even though it's needed to be done for months, the decision to finally do something about it feels like it hit suddenly. Had we really thought about it completely before acting? But after that first snip of hair (which I saved, of course), we knew there was no going back.

Now every time we look at him, we cringe a bit. The haircut really isn't that bad, even though we'll both admit it's not perfect. It's shorter than I thought it would be, but that's not what I don't like about it either. It's just different. He no longer looks like the little boy I've been used to. He looks more like a baby again now. His ginormous forehead stands out more than ever, and it's weird seeing it again.

Up until today, all the physical changes we've seen in him have been gradual. I don't notice them from day to day. I can tell when I compare pictures from months ago to pictures from the last week or so, but never has he experienced such a drastic change. For over a year I have been able to get to know my baby, every little thing about his personality and appearance, and the changes he's gone through have happened so slowly that I was used to them before I knew they had changed. Then today he made a huge change in his appearance all of a sudden, and I haven't had that time to get used to it yet.

Until I've had that time to get used to his hair this way, I think I will continue repeating to myself and Matt, "It will grow back."