Last night I loaded the kiddos up in the car and we hauled our cookies (OK, a lollipop, some cheerios, and some multi grain crackers) to Pigtails and Crewcuts for Max's first haircut. Not a carefully contemplated trip, just up and decided to go. Gabe and Ben were thrilled - I've been cutting their hair with the clippers at home for the amazing low, low price of 1 lollipop per haircut, so we haven't been to the "haircut place" as Gabe fondly calls it in forever. You can see the older boys are jazzed to be going back to the haircut place, especially since neither of them have to get a haircut there. The haircut place has a very nice train table, with all the tracks attached to the table in a complicated configuration that even Ben can't seem to remove from the table. There's even usually trains on the table to play with - not always the case with public train tables. It always astounds me how the boys will spend 40 minutes taking turns playing with one ratty, chewed up no name train at a public train table but demolish any track on their home table that is more complicated that a simple circle in 30 seconds flat while arguing endlessly over the approximately 4 billion Thomas the Tank Engine trains in the large under-table storage drawers. Nathan loves their train table. William loves their train table. Gabe and Ben...prefer to play trains anywhere else but home usually. The trains are always greener on someone else's table.
Back on track now - Max's first haircut. He doesn't really have a large amount of hair. All the hair on his head might equal one of Nathan's sideburns, or half of Penny's bangs. It's patchy and uneven on the top, but he's got a super crazy patch of hair going on behind the ears that I slick down many times a day with a baby wipe so he won't resemble Albert Einstein. On a bad hair day. How something so baby fine and soft can stick out so far from his hear is beyond me!
So we cruise up to Pigtails and Crewcuts in the big red car, of course, and the two older boys take off to the train table. I won't see them again for a while, allowing Max some rare uninterrupted Mommy time...during which I'll hand him over to a stranger to get shorn. Max was super excited, because his haircut took place in a firetruck, which to him was basically a taller big red car with a shiny silver steering wheel - sweet!
There was a boy in the taxicab next to Max, maybe 7 or so - way older than Gabe in any case. He was crying and carrying on - he did NOT want a haircut. Max just sat quietly in his firetruck, and let the stranger cut his hair. No fussing, barely any squirming. When she did the top of his do, he did try to look up a few times, but I rand the fire bell on the front of his fire truck and he soon was sitting quietly again. Towards the end she gave Max a blue comb to hold so he stared obligingly down at the comb so she could cut the back of his neck. I thought, Dude! I could have cut his hair if I'd know he was gonna be so accommodating...although, since we do not have a tall red firetruck chair with a shiny silver steering wheel, attempting to do it myself might have resulted in a trip to the emergency room for Max's first stitches...
In the end, Max came out happy, neat, and tidy. The older boys got train table playtime, lollipops, AND prizes from the prize bin since Max was too little for either reward. And Mommy got a half an hour of quiet, non-fighting play and a lot of cute Max pics. Win, win win for all... we won't talk about the dinnertime temper tantrums, eh? Till next time....
