Today was hair-cut day for all of us including a certain little one’s first foray into the land of snippers and clippers. This is one of those times that it can work out really well…or it can be a real hair-raising (or in the case of the Army…a hair-razing) experience!
Hey, you over there…PUT DOWN THOSE ROTTEN TOMATOES NOW! I’ve got the groaner out of my system, OK? Just don’t be so hair-triggered on the veggies and we’ll be just fine…this ain’t a Gallagher concert, ya know… 🙂
Anywho, an ordinary barber shop is too, well, ordinary for our little one’s first trim job. So Mommy managed to find a real special place designed for the little ones in mind with toys and a smallish jungle gym in the vestibule for the kids to play with and get comfortable with their surroundings.
The stations themselves are ingenious…each kid gets a vehicle to ride in or for the older ones, a horse where they hold on whilst the friendly lady goes about her business. There is a TV at each station and the kid gets their choice of a video tape. I don’t think it will catch any of the Eagle-Eyed BLOG readers by surprise when a certain little one decided to tap Elmo for entertainment duty.
It was Nicholas’ turn and he took his seat at the helm of the NYPD car (some little ankle-biter snagged the fire engine first…grrrr!!) and Elmo was merrily singing his favorite song. La-la la-la, yadda yadda… One Harry Potter cape and the ensemble was complete…and the job was done before you knew it. I realize he doesn’t have a whole lot up there on his dome to trim but he was such a good boy that she didn’t really have to fight him. He seemed rather fascinated by his mate in the fire engine who was returning the favor by having a peep at Nicholas’ Elmo tape more than his own!
After a few pictures, it was time for Nicholas to play again and he was very happy to do so. He even got a certificate that is destined for the scrapbook to be named later showing his monumental achievement. Now I’ve got to ask…where is the justice in this world, eh? Daddy’s first hair cut was likely at the hands of Army barbers and I’m sure you can imagine the drill: there is the right way, the wrong way, and the Army recruit way…and guess which way you’re getting, RECRUIT! There weren’t all of the toys and VCRs were really only in use in government and really big industries and the barbers are used to a very simple pattern…four to six swipes of the clippers and the job’s done. I will say that it sure didn’t cost a whole lot… Nicholas had more spent on his first haircut than Daddy probably had spent on his haircuts for the first ten years of his life. Ah, the power of inflation…
(Seriously, Army barbers are actually really good guys and if you’re not actually enlisted, they will spend the time to give you a nice trim, not the Next Stop: Iwo Jima special that Hollyweird likes to portray…provided you ask them to do so! And even those haircuts are practical…everyone in the platoon is the same as the others and when you’re doing a ruck sack march for 25 miles, it’s pretty nice not having a mass of sweaty hair to deal with!)
For a first haircut with scary things like scissors and clippers coming at his melon, Nicholas did just fine. In fact, he was a real trooper…
