I miss your curls

My baby's curls are gone.  And so is his babyness.  

He now looks like a five year old boy and my heart is ripping apart.  

We finally made the decision to get Liam's hair cut after many weeks of pondering the thought.  Prior to going I was truly excited for this task and had a visual in my head of what my son would look like after his hair was perfectly trimmed.  I was okay with it, prepared.  Once we arrived at the salon and Liam was placed in Daddy's lap we could tell that this was not going to be one of Liam's most favorite things.  He was not excited or interested at all.  Not in the least.  

For one, sitting still is not something Liam does well.  If you try to KEEP him still the situation usually gets worse.  For most of the cut, he screamed.  Especially when the electric clippers were used.  Though the stylist would stop using them for a minute or two so that Liam would calm down, once she turned them back on we were back to the screaming and flailing.  Luckily, he did tolerate the scissors fairly well.  I thought we were smart in bring a few of his favorite toys to keep him occupied, but he threw them aside.  The only thing that calmed him for a few seconds here and there would be asking him: "Liam where is the car?" and he would point outside and say "carrrrr" through his tears.  

Maybe it was because I had to watch my child screaming and crying throughout the whole experience, but I found that my eyes were constantly watering.  Not only was my little one "grown up" enough to get his hair cut, but he must have thought that we were holding him down and putting him through the most excruciating pain possible.  Especially since no one was doing anything to get him the heck out of there.  It was so sad.  He kept holding his arms out for me to take him away, but all I could do was hold his little hands and tell him "Baby, you're going to experience much worse than this in life."  But, really who am I to talk?  I'm standing there with tears in my eyes as my son's hair is being cut.  Come on, Mama.  "There's going to be much worse than this in life" (said in annoying mom voice).  Like, when he starts his first day of pre-school or goes on his first date or even his freaking shots later this month.  This experience should be painless for both of us!

Now, Liam hasn't seemed to notice or even cared about his shorter doo but I have had a hard time adjusting.  At first, I was concerned that he wouldn't be waking up in the mornings with "crazy hair" anymore as this was one of my favorite things to see when I wake up every morning.  I also didn't want his flawless sweep of bangs to disappear.  But, then my mother saw him and mentioned that all his curls were gone and suddenly I realized.  His curls are GONE.  No more post bath curls that I run my hands through as they dry.  My favorite little curls in the whole wide world.  I know they'll come back.  And I certainly plan on supporting their growth.  But, I can't wait to see them again.  Next time, I won't take them so much for granted. 

And also.. we kept some of Liam's hair for his baby book.  I know probably everyone does this but I knew for sure this was something I wanted to do only few months ago when I realized the significance.  After my grandfather passed away and my husband and I sat at a table looking through his memory books dedicated to his long life, we found an envelope.  As we opened the envelope we pulled out countless locks of light brown hair.  The hair, looking no older than yesterday had to be at least 80 years old as my grandfather lived until he was 89.  At the end of his life my grandfather did not have much hair left so to see this was a side of him that I could never really remember.  It reminded me that he once was a small boy just like Liam.  He once had beautiful hair and he once had a first haircut.  And even though after many years most of it had disappeared, here it was.  As good as new.  Reminding us all of his life.  

One day, I hope Liam's grandchildren will look back on his brown locks and this blog post and remember that he was a little boy as well.  And just how beautiful and wonderful him and his little locks were.