First Cut, First Shave

I love that Gayle at Planet M Files has this meme every week. It forces me to scan old photos, something that I probably wouldn’t do (though I should) if not for her.

This is the boy at around 9 or 10 months old. Gosh he was adorable. He had the most beautiful head of long curly hair. We knew the day was coming for the first hair cut, especially when every stranger would say, “What a cute girl you have.” And it didn’t matter how much blue he had on.

We wanted to wait until after his first birthday to do it. I don’t know why, we just knew that once we take the paramount, the unmitigated, the final-never-go-back step of giving him a hair cut, it would mark the end of that golden first year for us and for him.

And so it was. His first hair cut. In the bathtub. By the husband. On his 13th month on this earth, strangers finally started calling him a boy. I still have a lock of that curly beautiful baby hair.

And so this was the same postulate that we still operate. For some reason, we get very sentimental about “firsts” in this house.

The boy is now 15. He has never shaved. He has a small mustache and a tiny little bit of chin hair but it’s not enough to shave – or at least we didn’t so. Until last week when he was told by his wrestling coach in no uncertain terms that he was going to shave before the match.

And he was going to shave now.

The coach then had his wife run to the drug store to buy shaving cream and razors. The boy wouldn’t tell the coach that he’d never shaved before and he didn’t know how. I think there was a little bit of pride involved.

When we arrived at the meet, the boy was pacing up and down the hallway, agitated. He didn’t want to shave. He was being made to shave. Why did he have to shave?

The husband and I knew…here was another “moment.” So the husband and the boy went into the locker room and the boy had his first shaving lesson right there and then.

Anyway, he wouldn’t pose for me when he came back. There was a lot of drinking and a lot of looking away.

But finally he relented. Here he is…freshly shorn. My little boy! Now he’s a little man. And once again, mom is beside herself.

Posted on Gayle’s Monday Memories.