Well Coifed

My little boy got his first haircut today!

I took him to one of the many kiddie salon chains that seem to be popping up everywhere. All of them have snappy little names like Snip-its, or Doodle Do and they specialize in everything you'd expect from your salon- a shampoo, cut, and style, mani/pedis, hair products, and birthday parties (?!)...

My son's hair was getting shaggy up top, but he still had a "bald spot" on the back of his head. It wasn't technically bald... Since he still sleeps on his back, the hair on that spot just grows a lot slower than the rest. I planned to put off his first haircut until more hair could grew there. He probably could have gone several more months without one, but getting the hair out of his eyes has made him so much happier and best of all, you can't even tell there's a bald spot. The hairdresser thinned out his hair in back to make it look like one even length. My baby boy looks even more like a little man now. So adorable!

In spite of feeling somewhat frivolous for spending money on a professional haircut for an 11 month old, I thought it would be best to take him to someone with actual skills rather than risking my child's safety by doing it myself. Plus, I never would have figured out that trick of thinning his hair in back with clippers all on my own...

See, it was worth it!

Apparently I'm not the only one that feels this way. The kiddie salon biz has been all the rage the past few years and is growing, growing, growing. My "favorite" magazine, Cookie, even provides a guide to the nation's best kid-friendly salons. There is money to be made if you don't mind that a majority of your clientele will screech, run away, cry, bite and/or yell whenever they see you. I'm told that the first haircuts aren't bad. The kids don't know what to expect and are usually quite timid... "it's the second and third time that you have worry about," my son's hairdresser told me today, "that's when they've figured out what's coming and they don't like it".

Personally, I don't recall getting a "professional haircut" until I was much older and by "professional" I mean a low cost chain and only if we had a coupon. Most of the time, my mom just cut my hair and not very well, I might add. Well into my socially-critical junior high years, I had the standard Asian girl do. Straight bangs, straight hair... no style, no flare, and certainly no product.

Whenever I got a haircut as a kid, I had to sit on a wooden plank that rested on top of the barber chair's armrest and spent the entire time praying that a) after this is over I won't look like a boy and b) that they don't accidentally poke my eye or nick my ear.

Boy, have the times changed! My son's salon experience was much more kid-friendly, of course... He was seated and strapped into a fire engine that was just his size instead of a chair. In front of him, was a plasma tv playing some Disney movies. They had a variety toys to play with and bubbles at every station! I snapped a dozen photos and my son never cried and only fussed once... Not bad for a kid his age. The whole thing took five minutes and in the end, he received a certificate to commemorate his first haircut and I got to take home a lock of his bangs for the baby book and the bill.

As I was waiting for them to run my credit card, I reviewed their list of services and noticed that they offered something called the "first haircut package"... I did not opt for the "first haircut package", but only because it was a ridiculous amount to spend on the quarter inch of hair my son had to spare. I'm frivolous, not irresponsible.

I can't imagine my thrifty mother ever taking me to some place called "Hair Diddle Diddle".