First Hair Cut: A Story in Badly Taken Pictures

It really was time. The Boy is a month passed 2 and has been envious of Hubs' summertime buzz-cut for the past couple of months. And his hair, his sweet smelling, thin, curly cue mop was definitely on the way to us looking like we were making a statement.

I wasn't ready. I really wasn't ready, but the heat, the humidity and the cow licks were obviously testing The Boy's patience. So we headed out in 106 degree heat to a local kid's barber - don't know what I was thinking about going to Beverly Hills - and got The Boy his first trim.

It was lovely, with cheerful staff greeting The Boy in that sing-song geared specifically for toddlers. We met the nice girl who was assigned the task of cutting his hair - and I was pretty nervous going in that she would end up deaf or hating us if The Boy treated his time at the salon like his time at the pediatrician's.

But he did pretty well. Here's he is looking seriously concerned about what was about to happen.

The pop-up animals did little to calm his nerves so Hubs thought it best to let him sit on his lap. Then the taking of my sweet boys sweet locks commenced.

Look at how much they cut :(

They gave us a little certificate and a bag containing the hair from the first snip, so I guess we marked the occasion as best we could. I'm still kind of sad though. I mean, we would have had to cut it eventually anyway, I just would have preferred it to have happened later rather than sooner. Or later rather than last Saturday.

Here he is, back at home all neatly groomed like a big boy.

So now my sweetness is sleeping next to me, his once downy then straggly hair now nicely trimmed and cool. I guess it does look nice, but I still miss his cow-licks and am not even remotely looking forward to the next big milestone.

Dreaming of Cold Weather

I've only been 3 clothing sizes my whole life - my super skinny late-teen and twenties size 2, the early middle-age spread that bumped me up to a size 6-8 in my early 30's, and my post baby - would still be a size 8 if it wasn't for my fat belly - a size 8-10. And don't hate me, I'm a small-boned 5'1" so hardly skinny binny bitching about not fitting a sample size.

So yeah, shopping for myself isn't nearly as fun as it used to be and I've been clad in nothing but jeans and black tees since Facebook had a The in front of it. Fortunately, or unfortunately for my wallet, I've got The Boy as a means of sartorial expression now, outgrowing perfectly good clothes every few months. I'm not saying he has a huge wardrobe, it's actually quite small, but I have a heck of a lot of fun shopping for his clothes the few times a year that I do it.

Now is just such a time, when the trees are full and green but the back-to-school commercials are cluttering up my TV. It may kind of hard to contemplate Fall or Winter when it's 100 degrees out and our AC is busted, but some recent online sales have led me to do a bit of preemptive shopping. I learned last year that waiting for the weather to cool off before buying sweaters and hats means I end up staring at an 'Out of Stock' label on most of what I want for The Boy.

Anyhoo, here are some of the things that should soon be arriving on our doorstep.

Can't wait! Now I've got to stick my head in the freezer.

Book loving

The Boy has a lot of books. Thomas the Tank Engine, Peter Rabbit and Mother Goose chief among them. But we've also got a gigantic library of British books, given to The Boy as presents from his English family. Books that are mostly unknown to American kids and whose words fall off my American tongue awkwardly.

Though the characters may be largely unknown in the US, Hairy Maclary, Bobo, Fix-It Duck, the Gruffalo, Slinky Malinky and Bobo are all much cherished friends in our house.

Here's a pic one of our Hairy Maclary books

We also have "Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack" and "Slinky Malinky's Catflaps"

And a Duck book

We also have a book called "Yes" by the same author, Jez Alborough.

What was, perhaps, our first book love...

The Gruffalo. Other books from the same author are "Monkey Puzzle" and "Room on the Broom"

And our current fave

Because a book about underpants loving aliens is beyond awesome.

I really need to work on exposing The Boy to stuff that's more common over here so that when he and his buddies start talking about books, or at least characters of books, he has something in common with them. But I am so glad he has these books and these characters in common with his cousins and buddies in England. It means that all but 2 weeks of his early childhood may have been spent in the US, but that a crucial part of his development has been quintessentially British anyway.

Hippy Hair

It's almost time for The Boy's first hair cut. Born with a smattering of dark hair then the victim of infant pattern baldness, he's remained pretty much a baldy his whole 2+ years. Even now when he's got more hair than I ever could have imagined, it's still thin and sparse and seemingly undeserving of a trip to the barber's.

But it is starting to get long, and he seems to have inherited my penchant for cowlicks.

Observe

So yeah, there might not be much of it but it is quite stickie-outie. Hubs has been wanting to have it trimmed for months. I brushed it off and told him I'd be willing to part with The Boy's precious locks when his hair started hanging in his eyes. And I was gonna stick to that, but more and more it seems to be bugging him. Scratching at his ears and rubbing his head until he gives himself a static mohawk... I think he's trying to tell me that it's time.

I had been eying up local kid's hair cutting places, but then I saw THIS article on a website that I'm embarrassed to admit I frequent. And it led me to think that maybe THIS place might be fun for his first hair cut. I mean, yeah, it's in fancy schmancy Beverly Hills, but it's got awesome Yelp ratings and looks like it might be super fun for The Boy. I mean who wouldn't want to have their hair cut in a car before OD'ing on candy?

Decisions, decisions.

What got me through a Summer cold

He's all better now, but The Boy spent last week and part of this week coughing and snotting like nobody's business. We wouldn't have made it through without a jumbo bucket of Boogie Wipes, The Boy's favorite vitamins and many cups of tea for me.

Everything's new when you're two

Tonight after his bath The Boy discovered, for the very first time, that he had pruned hands. I was drying him off and he was riveted. I didn't know what was up at first, but then I got it. His little face was full of concentration as he examined his fingers, and then he turned to me and said, "clean it up."

I explained to him that he wasn't actually dirty and that his fingers would soon be back to normal. He then grabbed his bedtime books, curled up beside me in bed and forgot all about it.

A Day In the Life

As an homage to this post by the awesome Peeper, I did a picture diary of last Friday.

Starting with a breakfast of Wheetabix at 8am

A ride in our favorite grocery car during our morning walk at the cafe with Grandpa at around 9.

A bit of reading when we returned home around 10

Drawing a get well card for a friend around 11

A bit of lunch around 12

A game of peek-a-boo around 1

Taking a nap around 3 - yes, he fell asleep on the floor. Not a frequent occurrence but it does happen.

The cat napping around 4 - everyone was sleeping but me.

And getting some work done on the laptop before dinner - around 6.

And now The Boy is napping, not on the floor, and the cat is napping and I am loving my little family more than I ever thought it was possible to love anything.

Oh The Places You'll Go

My mom got me the Dr Seuss classic my senior year in high school and soon rued its wanderlust message. I spent most of the first four years after high school backpacking around Europe, working in bars in Prague, stumping for hostels in Brussels and sleeping in parks on the streets of Pamplona. I have always felt that that was the very best way to be young.

I have a twenty year old cousin who is currently working in a Croatian hostel before beginning his junior year abroad program in Bulgaria. Now, beside being incredibly proud and totally green with envy, I cannot help but look into the future and imagine The Boy's adventures in eighteen or twenty years.

To be honest the very idea scares the crap out of me. My dad described a feeling of overwhelming relief whenever he saw me exist the customs hall at LAX, waddling under the weight of my rucksack. Whatever sense of impending panic I have about sending The Boy off to school or summer camp, I'm even more nervous, and excited, at the prospect of him following in my Doc Martens and spending some time traveling.

In the meantime, however, we can see the world together,

Here's a picture I took of us crossing the Millennium Bridge in London

And here's The Boy on the same bridge, with a terrible picture of The Thames in the background.

Trip to the Tar Pits

The Boy had his first visit to the La Brea Tar Pits this past weekend. A field-trip staple while I was in school, the last time I had been there was when I was pregnant. So now that The Boy's 2 I figured it was time for him to meet a bunch of extinct creatures and experience the stench of the tar.

Yes there are actual pits of tar and they don't smell too good.

And here is The Boy contemplating his chances of pulling a weight out of some tar.

Our favorite parts of the day were witnessing a (fake) saber toothed tiger mauling a sloth - "Hi kitty," said The Boy, and a big lunch with some friends.

My new favorite Boy lunch

Toasted whole wheat English muffin, warmed turkey breakfast sausage, 1 slice or organic American cheese. Takes less than one minute to fix.

Vaguely healthy and sort of crunchy. I love it and, more importantly, The Boy accepts it as an alternative to the quesadilla stalwart.