The Haircut

A few days ago we gave Cooper a summer buzz haircut. Like his dad he gets hot very easily, and for the summer this haircut will help him stay cool. Let me say, though, that giving him that haircut ranks as one of the most demanding 20 minute tasks I have ever participated in. We did it at home with our own pair of clippers, and anyone who knows Cooper well knows that he WILL NOT be restrained for any reason without putting up a tremendous struggle.

Here's how it went down:

First we tried it with him standing in his high chair so he had nowhere to go, and so that his hair wouldn't get all over us. The immediate flaw in this approach was that, even though we (I) could keep his head stationary while mommy cut his hair; his feet were free to perform jumps, stamps, and other tantrumish movements. Needless to say, the high chair approach was quickly abandoned despite the bonus of us remaining hair-free. The next strategy was the bear hug hold with one handed shearing. This involved me holding Cooper's arms and legs (legs too because his feet were exactly at my groin level) in the tightest, most loving bear hug, while Sarah held his head as still as possible and at the same time practically sheep shearing him as fast as she could. Meanwhile, Cooper was screaming and creating a glue of snot and tears for his copious amount of cut hairs to stick to. I'm certain any outside spectator would have sworn we were doing our best to torture some kind of information out of him. "Where did you hide the sippy cup? We know you have it somewhere! We're going to keep squeezing you and rubbing your head with this buzzy-thingy until you talk!" After about 10 minutes of this (felt like 40) he, and we, were done. We were all completely covered in Cooper hair, and Cooper was sobbing. Sarah looked us all over and said, "We're all getting in the shower."

If there are any volunteers willing to do Cooper's next haircut please, please contact me. Below are a couple of pics of a happy, haircutted Cooper.