Time Travel Via Haircut

Today, I took Eli for a haircut. We are about a month away from starting school and since he is going to private school, there are certain "rules" as far as hair length goes. Because his hair grows SO fast, it's hard to keep this long style without it being into eyes or over his ears within only a couple of weeks after a cut. I am too busy (and cheap) to maintain this at that rate. So, we thought we'd experiment. Since his hair does grow so incredibly fast, we figured if we didn't like it, it would most likely grow back out before school started.

It took all week to get Eli psyched up for this. Being a child that destests change, a drastic haircut was not on his "things I can tolerate" list. All week he has said things like, "I'm not going" or "I will hide". Yesterday, he started to come around and said, "So, if I don't like it, I can grow it back out?" I was overjoyed that my change destesting child was becoming openminded, so I assured him that growing it back out was an option. By today, he was ready and dare I say a bit excited to take the plunge. He hasn't had short hair since he was little, so I think all he has ever known is long hair.

We had to wait for a little while before it was his turn so we thumbed through a few style books.
Eli stopped me at one page and said, "Hey! That looks like my daddy!" A HUGE grin spread across my face because the man in the picture was not his daddy...it was Brad Pitt. I told him it did look an awful lot like his daddy. Brian liked this comment :)

The actual cut went really well, except that Eli wouldn't keep his mouth closed and with all that hair being sheared, he had quite a bit in his mouth...yuck! He thinks it's pretty cool that he gets to put gel in his hair like daddy does. And best of all...he doesn't want to grow it back out. Turns out he likes the change...baby steps :)

BEFORE

and...AFTER!

I might have gotten a tear or two because I was instantly transported back in time, swearing I was gazing into the happy, carefree eyes of my firstborn...at 18 months old. My how time flies!! He's really growing up way too fast!