The First Haircut

Paulo is wearing T-Rex Touchdown from Letop's 2010 Fall/Winter Collection

I didn’t want to do it, but I had to do it. I wanted to keep my baby boy’s hair untouched by a pair of scissors because I am thinking that this is the only way for me to hold on to his “baby-ness.” Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Unfortunately, Paulo’s hair kept getting in his eyes and he was constantly rubbing his hands trying to move his long bangs out of his face. So the time has come for… Paulo’s First Haircut!

With my daughter, her first haircut was just at a nearby cheap-o haircutting salon. No frills. She was excited to do it because she has seen me do it before. She sat still through the entire session! Maybe it’s a girl thing. I don’t know. I took her before and after pictures, and saved a lock of her hair for her baby book. With Paulo, I knew this guy wasn’t going to be that easy. I’ve heard of these special children’s hair salons where they had horses, motorcycles and cars that kids can sit in. While they were watching a DVD of “Sesame Street” or “Dora the Explorer,” the hairstylist was chopping away as fast as he/she could while the child was distracted. So, I already knew that this is where I needed to go. They had him in-and-out in 15 minutes! Yeah, it was a bit more expensive but it was definitely worth it! Included with the price was a “My First Haircut” certificate, a photo and a little bag of his hair.

So now he looks older (especially in the convertible sports car) but he’s still my handsome little devil.

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Le Top Tip: How to get your child to want to wash their hair!

Last week I had the honor of babysitting my two nephews, Otto (5 ½-years-old) and Wade (3-years-old).  My mother and I took them to a fun pizza dinner in our local area and planned for a night of ‘red light, green light,’ tag, “bath time,” and then Toy Story 3!  Everything was going smoothly in our ‘adventures in babysitting,’ but I was a little anxious how my youngest nephew, Wade, would react to wanting to take a bath and wash his hair. My sister forewarned me that they are the typical two little boys who are not always exactly “excited” about bath time and can be a little stubborn about washing their hair. I appreciated my sister giving me the heads up, and brainstormed ways to make bath time fun!

1. Fun soap. I stocked up on two types of shampoo – Johnson & Johnson ‘no tears’ (so that Wade wouldn’t be scared to wash his hair) and another watermelon scented shampoo (to make showering fun and smells yummy!). You can get all kinds of soaps, bubble baths, and lathers for kids to make bath time more fun. You can also get soap in their favorite character bottle. They come in different scents, colors, foaming, or not foaming, etc. Help them have fun washing up with soap that is user friendly.
2. Bath songs. I tried to utilize the hand-held shower spray in the tub and tried to make bath time interactive. I sang “it’s raining, it’s pouring” with Otto and Wade and pretended the hand-held shower tool was a rain cloud ‘raining.’ Either make up a song, or look up “bath time songs” online for a list of ideas to help you progress through the various stages of cleaning your child with tunes.
3. Most kids do not want to take a bath if it is going to be boring, so make sure that they feel like they are involved, and get to make some of the decisions. I allowed each of them to hold the showerhead and let it “rain” on each other by washing away soapsuds! Kids will get into the fun of things if you sing a song about washing them up as you do so.
4. Lastly, I had dry wash cloths prepared for each of my nephews. As soon as I finished rinsing out the shampoo out of their hair, I gave them each a fresh and dry wash cloth to put over their eyes to help them feel more safe and comfortable that they could get the water and soap away from their eyes.

Voila! Two clean nephews and a fun and clean time!

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