Emrick’s First Professional Haircut, aka Long Time No Post

Emrick was born with a full head of hair:

I know they say that babies who are born with lots of hair usually have it all fall out within a couple of months, but Emrick’s never did. Well, not most of it anyway. It thinned out on the sides quite a bit when he was a few months old, but otherwise, it has held strong. It grows pretty fast, too, which is why Emrick got his first haircut, courtesy of Mom and Dad, when he was just four months old.

Emrick, after his first haircut and gel job.

We continued to cut it pretty often. It was so fine and stringy, that it tended to get super greasy-looking within two days of a bath, so keeping it short helped that problem.

Emrick, with long greasy hair.

Anyway, cutting his hair was always kind of a struggle. He wouldn’t hold still, which meant that his haircuts were often of the quick and sloppy variety. When he got old enough for clippers, we buzzed him all over a few times, which was quick and easy, but nearly always produced tears…

October 2012

Emrick, calmer but still uneasy during his October haircut.

Wet eyelashes.

We often thought about taking him in for a professional cut, but Emrick’s shyness around strangers (which a few times came in the form of full-blown meltdowns) made us pretty sure that that idea was a no go. I really thought he would be four years old before we could even attempt to take him to a pro.

But a couple of things have happened in the past few months. One is that Emrick actually noticed and expressed an interest in a haircutting shop in Lehi that specializes in children’s haircuts. There is a sandwich place right next door, and one evening the three of us stopped there for a quick dinner after running some errands. From the sidewalk outside, Emrick could see a child inside the barber shop getting his hair cut. “What’s that baby doing?” he asked. “What’s that baby doing?” is what Emrick asks any time he sees any kid doing anything, even if that “baby” is twelve. “He’s getting his hair cut,” Marcus answered. “That’s right,” I added, “and maybe some day we can take you here to get your hair cut.” And with that, Emrick marched to the barber shop door, opened it, and tried to walk in. Marcus and I laughed and then stopped him. For one thing, we were heading to dinner, and for another, we were pretty sure that Emrick had NO IDEA what he was getting himself into when he pulled open that door as casually as if it were one of the kitchen cabinets at home.

The other thing that has happened in the past couple of months is that Emrick’s stranger anxiety has calmed down a bit. He is still a little shy, and probably always will be, but it’s better now. He can now be coaxed into saying “Hi” and “Bye” and “Thank you” to complete strangers when these things were unthinkable six months ago. When cashiers at the store try to talk to him, for example, he now consistently responds with a tentative grin rather than turning the back of his head to them. Of course, he has always warmed up to people he sees repeatedly, but the strangers he encounters for a few minutes and whom he is unlikely to see again (e.g. a cashier or a barber)? Such people used to make him very uncomfortable or even upset, but now he takes this whole stranger business with a lot of stride. My boy is growing up!

So given these developments, we decided a couple of weeks ago that it was time to give the professional haircutting thing a shot. Of course, we went to the same shop that Emrick had tried to enter a few months earlier. We took him last Saturday, the 20th. I had mentioned it to him a couple of days before to get him used to the idea, and so by Saturday afternoon, he was actually kind of excited about it. He talked about it during the entire drive to “Cookie Cutters” (the name of the shop). When we got there we saw they had a selection of playful seats from which children could choose to have their haircut. One was shaped like an airplane. Since Emrick likes airplanes, that’s the one we decided to try. Marcus tried to set him in the airplane, but Emrick clung to him. His chin was on Marcus’ shoulder and his blue eyes looked especially round and worried. “Don’t like it,” he said with a quiver. He was supposedly saying he didn’t like the airplane, but of course what he really meant was that he wanted to stay in his dad’s arms.

The girl who was going to be cutting his hair was about to suggest another seat, but I asked her first what her name was because I thought that if I could talk about her to Emrick like she is someone we knew, he would relax a little. She said her name was “Demri”. So I said to Emrick, “Emrick, Demri is going to cut your hair today. Can you say hi to her?” Emrick grinned, waved, and said “Hi.” She came around to Marcus’ back so she could see Emrick’s face over his shoulder. She smiled and said “Hi” back, and just as I had hoped, Emrick eased a bit. Demri suggested the seat that was a blue car; it had a horn that beeped. Emrick let Marcus put him in the blue car, though he still looked a bit worried. Right away the girl offered him an orange-flavored sucker, and let me tell you, that sucker is what made this haircut possible. Truly. In the same way that the flux capacitor makes time travel possible. It was THAT necessary. For his entire haircut, Emrick focused more intently on that sucker than he has focused on anything ever. On the few occasions where he moved his head around, the girl moved with him without so much as a blink. Clearly, bringing Emrick to a place that does children’s haircuts as a specialty was the way to go.

The sucker, you can see, made Emrick virtually immune to the terrifying buzz and vibration of the clippers.

The scissors portion of the haircut was equally smooth.

Finally, Emrick was all done and gelled up!

Before leaving, he was given an orange helium balloon.

Look at that kid.

By the time we got into the van, Emrick seemed to have decided that the whole haircut experience was pretty awesome. He forgot all about the blue car with a horn that beeped, but he talked about that orange sucker for days.

MY BABY!!