And Now He Has Lost His Superhuman Strength

This is a picture of Judah from Christmas Day. For some time now, we have been debating what to do with Judah's hair; we love it long because it's so darn cute, but at the same time, the poor kid was constantly in danger of having his eyes stabbed out by his wayward bangs. Abe dreamed of Judah having long, curly locks, and he loved the way Judah's hair peeked out from underneath his winter hat (which he loves to wear all the time), but the reality was shaping up to be quite different from the dream. Judah's hair is incredibly fine, and with every trim I gave in an attempt to stave off the mullet look, I cut off more and more of his baby curl until it was all gone. The long, curly locks we hoped for were more like overgrown and straggly.

We've also gotten the "my, your two girls are adorable" line one too many times, and there is one particular male relative whose name I won't mention here, but whose initials are Grandpa Nichols, who makes comments every time we see him about how we need to cut our son's hair because he looks like a girl. Our response to all of these comments has always been something to the effect of "phooey on you, go suck an egg," but we finally realized that, girl cut or not, Judah's hair was no longer practical and was getting a wee bit out of control. So this morning, we did this:




I did the deed myself with a pair of clippers. I used the longest guide (an 8!!!), hoping to leave some of the length intact so Judah could retain some of that long-haired cuteness, but it quickly became apparent that I should have used a 15. 8 cut it as short as you see here.

I think it goes without saying that I sobbed. I felt as if my little guy had vanished, and in his place was this--this BOY. And I am not prepared for my baby to be a BOY.

He was covered in hair, so we ran him up to the bathroom, stripped him down, and gave him a bath. With his hair squeaky clean and all of the missed spots apparent, I was able to then trim with the scissors around the ears and at the nape and complete the cut. Here's the after, though it's not a particularly great picture, and I think I did trim up a few tiny spots after I took it, but you get the idea:


I still think he's about the most handsome little boy that ever walked the face of the earth, but this will certainly be an adjustment for me. He doesn't seem to mind or care about the change--in fact, he's probably grateful that his eyes are not getting poked out anymore. He'll probably wear his hat even more often now that he doesn't have all that hair for insulation, but his hair won't peek out from the bottom, sadly.

I saved some of the hair in a baggie. I can't imagine what I'm going to do with it, or how long I will keep it, but I'm just not ready to let it go just yet!