My Kingdom For A Stylist

My kid has a lot of hair.  He had a lot of hair when he was born.  He wasn't the hairiest kid ever, but I'd say in the 90th percentile for hair growth for a kid his age.  And this should surprise no one, given the fact that my husband and I have more hair than the average couple.  How much?  I have to snip the hairballs out of the beater bar of our vacuum cleaner every month.  In spite of a hair catch in our shower, we have to snake the drain every six months.  Gross?  A little.  But it's our lot in life until we go bald.

I didn't actually start writing this with the intention of mentioning my hairy drains. I was thinking of my little boy's mop and how I'm completely unqualified to cut his hair.  I started cutting it when it looked like this.

He is about 10 months old in this picture.  I loved his long hair and resisted cutting it as long as I could. I tried barrettes (they wouldn't stay in).  I tried sweeping it to the side, but it wouldn't stay. I finally cut his bangs because they were hanging in his face and he would use his little fists to scrub it out of his eyes.  It seemed to really bother him.

I started with his bangs. After I cut the first few locks, I cried and gave up. Not that he noticed.

Short in front, long on the sides, party in the back.  *sigh* But I didn't give him.  Sometimes he'd sit still for a few minutes and I'd trim a few more locks.  I'd get the sides, the back, it was ALWAYS uneven, but I maintained it over the course of a year.  If I could keep it looking more like this, I'd be happy.

But I can't.  It's starting to get long and shaggy again.  As his toddlery motor skills increase, he becomes more agile and likely to duck my scissors.  Not that I have actual hair-cutting scissors. That's my other problem. I'm using cheap, dull scissors for this.  Shame on me.  At this point I have two choices: keep going and continue to subject my son to terrible haircuts until I improve, or bite the bullet and take him to a real stylist at the risk of him not liking it at all and having a public melt-down (introvert-mommy's worst nightmare).  In the meantime, I still think he looks like a gorgeous baby-model, no matter what his hair looks like.  Check out his Blue Steel look.

Yup. Really, really, ridiculously good-looking.