The dreaded haircut

Mayhem needs a haircut. He has coarse curly hair. It has reached a length where the back will lay ok but the top stands up, as if he had been laying on his back while it dried - even if he has not. You can't spray it down either. I've tried. Plus he won't stand still for it & I'm not up for chasing him around the house with a spray bottle at 7:30 every morning. It used to grow out smoother & softer with bigger curls and I could let it get girlishly long before I had to trim it. I'm not sure what happened to his hair texture in the past year, but the only way to deal with it seems to be to cut it.

He hates having his hair cut. He will not sit still for a barber or hairdresser. Not on his own, not in my lap, not with the promise of a lollipop if he is good, not with a lollipop already in his mouth, not if they use scissors, not if they use clippers. Even if I manage to persuade him to sit down calmly, he will wiggle, flinch and wail non-stop as soon as the stylist approaches. Once I physically held his head still while the woman trimmed him & he was mostly calm about it but never again. He has seen me, his father and his brother get their hair cut. He has watched other children get their hair cut. He has never been nicked or cut with the scissors. He has never seen anyone so much as have their hair pulled a bit tightly while getting their hair cut. He is not afraid of the noise the clippers make & will admit they just tickle the back of his neck. But he carries on as if there were a million nerve endings in each strand of hair.

I can get him to sit in his dad's lap while I run the clippers over his hair. I use a 1" guide and pretty much just buzz over his whole head until there are no noticeably longer bits left. It looks ok I suppose. But I know it would look so much nicer with a decent hair cut, if someone who knows what they are doing uses scissors to work with the curl rather than buzz it all off. I am hoping he grows out of this sooner or later. Havoc had a brief period where he didn't like getting his haircut either but now it is a matter of pride for him to sit still in the barber chair. Yes, I am saving a bunch of money buzzing his hair myself & he could care less what he looks like but he is just so darn cute when he has his curls trimmed right.

I'm going to try & get him to agree to a trim at Cost Cutters tomorrow morning, but I'll probably end up digging out the clippers after dinner.