The Haircut

AJ's hair has been getting a little out of control. It's long, it's wispy and fine. We've never taken him to have it cut by a professional. Ever.
He HATES to have his hair cut, so usually haircuts for AJ usually consist of me pinning him in a chair while I attempt to trim his hair out of his eyes and off his ears without severely wounding him or drawing more than a little blood. There's crying, there's wiggling, there's whining. And then there's AJ - who's even worse.
Well, his hair has progressively gotten more choppy, more uneven, and more mullet-like as the months go by so yesterday I decided to take him to someone who actually knows what they're doing and let them have a go at it. I promised AJ ice cream if he would sit relatively still and let them cut his hair. He was all about the ice cream....the sitting still part was NOT gonna happen.
I plop him down in the stylist's chair and she tried to amuse him by pumping his chair up and down.
"Isn't that fun?" she crooned.
AJ shakes his head no.
"Here. You wanna wear my batman cape?" she asks as she spreads it over his lap.
"NO!" AJ says.
She fastens it anyway but he keeps flapping it up and down like a parachute.
"How much do you want cut off?" She asks me.
In the next 3 minutes I tell her what I want, these sentences included:
"Something a little shorter for summertime, since it's starting to get warmer outside"
"But NOT a buzz-cut"
"A little shorter in the back, longer in the front"
"I don't want it to look like a military cut"
"It needs to be long enough that I can put some stuff in it and spike it up a little or something"

Is that difficult? Does it sound hard? I didn't think so. I thought it was pretty clear.
To be honest, I had something like this in mind: yes, McCauley Caulkin in his younger, cuter years. Blond, spiky, adorable, right? But I didn't want to actually SAY "make my kid look like McCauley Caulkin, because well....that's kinda weird. And she could've made him look like freaky-deaky greasy punck McCauley Caulkin, and that was so NOT what I was going for.

Anyway, she says she's going to use the biggest attachment on the clippers, which I think is no problem, because when I cut AJ's hair I use that one too. The only difference is, that I use clippers ONLY on the back part of his hair, and then I scissor-cut the top, so it's a little longer. This is what I'm expecting her to do, but instead, she turns the clippers on and runs those blasted clippers over his ENTIRE head.
I reeled back in surprise, my mouth fell open. I was about to scream at her for ruining my beautiful child's hair and jump on her back like a banshee and shave her own head bald with her own dang clippers, but I figured it was too late now, what could I do??
She continued until all his gorgeous blond locks were all over the floor. I sat in shocked silence while Owen was beside me giggling, "AJ's get his hair cut. It's all ova the floor"
By this point AJ is crying uncontrollably - tears rolling down his face and pulling away when she comes at him again with the clippers. I think he knew the magnitude of his loss.
"Is that about what you had in mind?" she asked me.
"No. That was the exact OPPOSITE of what I had in mind" I replied.
She didn't say anything.
I was horrified.
AJ was glad to be climbing out of her chair.
Owen was skipping out the door for ice cream.
I paid.
I did not tip.
I am sad.


All of AJ's beautiful hair, gone.
It'll take at least 6 months to grow back.

I told Steve he went from being a really cute kid, to just an average kid.
I told Steve he looks like one of those kids that you look at and think, "oooh. that kid looks like a brat"
Steve said it looks like we've decided to join the KKK and we started our transformation with AJ. All he needs is a swastika tattooed on the back of his neck.

It also looks a little bit like he has a Mowhawk (steve asked me if I had them cut it into a Mohawk) because he has a streak of darker hair running down the middle of his head.

AJ, I'm so sorry. It'll grow back. And I'll never cut your gorgeous hair again.

If anyone wants to make a hat donation, we're accepting.