Henry and the haircut

This post is not simply about a haircut. If only it could have been that simple.

As you can see from the pictures below, or may have noticed in recent posts, Henry was due for a haircut.

I've always preferred his hair longer rather than super short and have been traumatized on more than one occasion when he's gotten an extremely choppy, short haircut. His previous haircut a few months ago was one of these, a traumatizing, short haircut. Patrick volunteered to take him and when he brought him home, I almost cried. (Again, not the first time. I'm apparently very attached.) So for the past few months I've been fine just letting it go (and letting it grow). Lately several well meaning relatives have been hinting around about Henry needing a haircut, i.e., "Henry, do you want me to cut your hair" and things like that. My defining Henry needs a haircut moment was when I posted these big boy bike pictures. His hair is just too long, I realized!

So last week I took the boys to a haircut place near our house thinking Henry could get a quick haircut and we could get out and on our way. I talked about the haircut and talked him through the haircut step-by-step before we even left the house so that he'd be prepared. And then to sweeten the deal, I brought along a Ring Pop which I told him he could have after his hair was cut. As we were getting ready to leave the house he even said, and I quote, "let's go get my hair cut!" That's where the fun ends. As I opened the door to the hair salon the nice ladies working greeted us with pleasantries and smiles and Henry turned and started walking the other way. I closed the door and walked after him, again explained the haircut and walked towards the entry again. He walked in this time but as a 38 lb growth on my leg. He refused to greet or even acknowledge the nice and friendly stylist. And then as she was offering him a lollipop he hid underneath a chair in the waiting area - to my horror. After several minutes of talking him through the process he agreed to come back to the stylists chair. He refused the booster, but agreed to sit on my lap. He accepted the lollipop from the kind stylist and started licking it but then let it go and got it stuck in my hair while frantically batting away the stylists hands from his hair. There was also some crying and a few screams. After this continued on for several long, agonizing and unproductive minutes I called it quits. We drove home and threw away the Ring Pop! I asked Patrick if he would bring Henry to get his haircut later in the week.

He did, but much to his shock and horror, the same scene played out for him. He gave up on the haircut at a salon, but neither of us could let it go - Henry needed his hair cut. So Patrick brought Henry home, put him in the bath and proceeded to cut his hair while he played in the tub. There are a few spots that scream "Homemade haircut!" But all in all it turned out pretty good. Scroll to see the finished product below.

A few other things about Henry I've been meaning to post:

• He loves lip gloss and shoes. I'll take the blame for both. I'm sure it's a product of all the time we spend together! In the picture above he's sporting some pink lip gloss from my makeup bag. Sometimes I'll let him play to buy myself a few minutes to put on my own makeup. Once Patrick wiped the lip gloss off of Henry's lips before we left for church and Henry got so upset. He said sternly, "don't wipe my lips off Patrick!" Yikes.
• Because I said so. If we were playing Jeopardy the correct answer would be, "what is what I feel like saying when I hear Henry ask Why for the 50th time in a row?" Henry has officially entered the "Why" phase. While I try to elaborate on every last thing he asks why about, I am often so tempted to just say "because I said so".
• He is pretending more now when he plays. He pretends that people are driving the tractors and that his cousins and friends are riding on the tractors with him. Just yesterday I heard him using a different voice when he was pretending to be Grandpa Tractor (Patrick's Dad) driving his tractor.
• He's very observant. For example, yesterday at the park there were a couple of older boys playing. Then they left together, one on rollerblades and one on a skateboard. Later he asked me, "where did that boy with the red shoes go?" We'd never talked about his shoes but he was right the boy did have flashy red shoes. I couldn't believe he'd noticed, much less remembered them.