Let him eat cake... at his first haircut

"We should take Sam to get his hair cut," my wife said before dinner Tuesday.

I let that sink in for a moment, then arched an eyebrow. "Really?" I asked.

"Yep."

"What made you decide that?"

"He looks like Einstein when he wakes up."

Her words were true. But we had been back and forth on this one many times.

"You're not going to change your mind?"

"Nope."

"OK then."

So we ate dinner and set off. My wife said the place where she gets her hair cut has a special set-up just for kids. I said it sounded great.

Still I had mixed feelings, for two reasons.

For one thing, when Sam finally grew hair over the winter, it erupted in joyful springy curls, which shot from his head in all directions. Then, as summer dawned, the lengthening curls got streaked with blond by the sun, giving him the kind of hair that made old ladies ooooh and aaaaah at the supermarket.

Then one day Sam wandered into the midst of a teenage basketball game at a nearby playground. "She's on my team," one of the boys said.

Over the next week that happened twice more. And PC as I might pretend to be on gender issues, I was not really excited to hear my little boy mistaken for a girl. Gender equality is one thing; gender uncertainty is another.

Still, we didn't have the heart to clip those glorious curls. Not yet, we kept telling ourselves, even as we struggled with detangler and a hair brush after baths. Eventually, but not yet.

Until Tuesday, of course, when my wife decided for both of us.

My other reason for my trepidation was that my now-13-year-old son made a legendary show of his first haircut. I had to grimly clamp him to my lap with one arm and clamp his head to my chest with the other to let a hairdresser near him with scissors, and lacked a third hand to muffle his murderous shrieks. The first hairdresser had to quit in emotional exhaustion while her partner finished up.

I was 13 years older, and didn't know if I had either the emotional or physical strength for a repeat. Sam puts up an impressive defense when we go to change his diaper, doing back bridges and mule kicks and screeching at the approximate frequency of a dentists' drill. What kind of fuss would he make in a barber chair?

The answer? None.

Why? Because my wife is wise as well as decisive. Not only was she right about the setup the salon had -- a chair with a steering wheel aimed directly at a TV with a DVD player and a selection of discs -- she also had the foresight to stop for a box of donut holes. Sam watched "Spongebob," steered his chair and munched on "cake" throughout the experience, charmed all the women in the salon, and left with his hair half as long and even curlier.

No longer does he look like Einstein. No longer does he look like a girl. He looks like a little boy with joyful curls. I don't think my wife and I will have any issues getting his hair cut next time.

As for his attitude, two days later he was liberally sprinkling his babble with his new word, "haircut," and kept linking it with "cake" and "ladies."

I don't think he'll have any issues getting his hair cut next time, either.

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