Of Course I'm Blogging about It!
Poor Samuel. His ups and downs get blogged about by his mommy. I wish I could lie and tell you that everything he does is wonderful, adorable and brilliant. He is wonderful, adorable and brilliant...that's why the world is not full of only children. They have their adorable moments. Today, however, I saw few adorable moments.
The day went something like this:
Andy and I both happened to be home today. We decided last night that it would be a good idea to get Sam his first haircut - well his first real haircut. The quick snips that I and his Nana had been managing to get in at bathtime were no longer working and our lack of formal haircut training was, well...showing. Sam was starting to develop a bubble flip. More than once, someone commented on what an adorable little girl I had. It's fine...I'm not bitter. I'm just gonna defend all mothers who dress their babies in colors that make gender distinction easy...DO I HAVE TO MAKE HIM CARRY A FOOTBALL AND A REMOTE CONTROL AROUND? HOW MANY BOWS DOES ONE HAVE TO PUT IN THE HAIR OF THEIR LITTLE GIRL? I feel better...good thing I'm not bitter.
Okay, so I digress...mainly from exhaustion. We were going to "run over to Great Clips" for this momentous event. Everything about that sentence is anti-toddler. We ran in and the stylist said something about, if he moves at all, they stop cutting. He's a toddler, not a toddler size doll. We grudgingly decided to go to a place that specializes in cutting hair of children that ACTUALLY MOVE. We walked into the children's hair cutting Mecca in awe. They had toys and movies and animal crackers. They had scissors and razors that cut hair but not fingers. The barber chairs were race cars and fire engines. Anything went in this, next best thing since naptime. Sam was immediately taken with the train tables. As I sat their zoning out (moms, you know what I'm talking about - the "my child is happy" zone out) one mother told her toddler to stop touching his face with his hands after all those kids had been touching the same train. I looked at my permanently drooling, puts everything in his mouth but a toothbrush darling and called out, "You too, Samuel." Andy just smirked. I don't actually have to BE a good mother...just LOOK like a good mother. Whatever.
So, in a few minutes, Samuel's name was called. Andy and I stood up and went to have a quick consultation with our stylist. We burst out with phrases like "this could go one of two ways", "it's okay if you can't handle this" and "we have no expectations." She smiled and said, "We do this a lot, it will be fine." We relaxed and stopped apologizing up front. She was right. It was fine. For about five seconds. On second six, of sitting in the fancy police car, Samuel had decided he was done. I will let you see the pics below. He cried, he screamed, he threatened to become a Democrat. Anything he could do to communicate to us the level of his misery, he did. It's okay, Samuel. We know you are miserable...in fact the entire county knows you're miserable. I believe there was a moment where the people of Iran stopped protesting and burning things to figure out who was screaming so loud.
As for Andy and I...I have to say that I am proud of us. We hung in there. We worked together. We took turns holding him down and pinning his arms to his side. We alternated between handing things to him that he would throw across the room and apologizing to everyone in the room. (And, by the way, no one cared - they all had kids too) We wiped the sweat from each others brow. We worked together like a real team. Dr. Phil would have been proud. Suffice it to say, Samuel was beside himself. It is hard to share this with you. I wish I could report that he sat there like an angel, sipping his juice and eating animal crackers. That he took his own money he'd earned from cutting lawns this summer and tipped the stylist himself. That he shared the Gospel with this woman and lead her to Christ. I wish. He didn't, although I believe their was a lot of praying.
Amazingly, this woman cut his entire head of hair. I'm not sure how. I'm not sure when. I'm fairly certain that I either blacked out for a moment or blocked out some moments. Who knows. At the end of the day, we got our little boy looking like a little boy. We paid the cashier and left the stylist a 67% tip and made her a beneficiary on our insurance policy. She was a trooper. I would have quit. In true Samuel, I'm only upset because I don't want to be doing this right now, fashion, he got down from the stylist chair of hell and skipped over to the train table. He squealed and giggled and screamed "Choo Choo" happily. Meanwhile, back at the chair of hell, I was picking crushed animal crackers off the floor and Andy was icing his knees.
As if that wasn't enough, we went to gather up our little boy from the train table to go to the car, when tantrumtastic reared its ugly head again. This time, as we picked him up, he managed the "armpit collapse" maneuver. This maneuver is executed, mostly over concrete or (as per Heidi) at the top of a flight of wooden stairs. You think you have your hands secured tightly under his arms as you go to lift, but then he straightens his arms out, thereby collapsing his armpit and giving you nothing to keep hold of. This forces the toddler to slide to the ground (or freedom) and the assailant (or parent) is momentarily stunned.
Somehow, we got him in the car...and somehow he managed to do something adorable 5 minutes later and we decided against putting him up for auction on EBAY. He looks adorable. He is adorable. He is simply going on two and somedays, REALLY good at it!
The day went something like this:
Andy and I both happened to be home today. We decided last night that it would be a good idea to get Sam his first haircut - well his first real haircut. The quick snips that I and his Nana had been managing to get in at bathtime were no longer working and our lack of formal haircut training was, well...showing. Sam was starting to develop a bubble flip. More than once, someone commented on what an adorable little girl I had. It's fine...I'm not bitter. I'm just gonna defend all mothers who dress their babies in colors that make gender distinction easy...DO I HAVE TO MAKE HIM CARRY A FOOTBALL AND A REMOTE CONTROL AROUND? HOW MANY BOWS DOES ONE HAVE TO PUT IN THE HAIR OF THEIR LITTLE GIRL? I feel better...good thing I'm not bitter.
Okay, so I digress...mainly from exhaustion. We were going to "run over to Great Clips" for this momentous event. Everything about that sentence is anti-toddler. We ran in and the stylist said something about, if he moves at all, they stop cutting. He's a toddler, not a toddler size doll. We grudgingly decided to go to a place that specializes in cutting hair of children that ACTUALLY MOVE. We walked into the children's hair cutting Mecca in awe. They had toys and movies and animal crackers. They had scissors and razors that cut hair but not fingers. The barber chairs were race cars and fire engines. Anything went in this, next best thing since naptime. Sam was immediately taken with the train tables. As I sat their zoning out (moms, you know what I'm talking about - the "my child is happy" zone out) one mother told her toddler to stop touching his face with his hands after all those kids had been touching the same train. I looked at my permanently drooling, puts everything in his mouth but a toothbrush darling and called out, "You too, Samuel." Andy just smirked. I don't actually have to BE a good mother...just LOOK like a good mother. Whatever.
So, in a few minutes, Samuel's name was called. Andy and I stood up and went to have a quick consultation with our stylist. We burst out with phrases like "this could go one of two ways", "it's okay if you can't handle this" and "we have no expectations." She smiled and said, "We do this a lot, it will be fine." We relaxed and stopped apologizing up front. She was right. It was fine. For about five seconds. On second six, of sitting in the fancy police car, Samuel had decided he was done. I will let you see the pics below. He cried, he screamed, he threatened to become a Democrat. Anything he could do to communicate to us the level of his misery, he did. It's okay, Samuel. We know you are miserable...in fact the entire county knows you're miserable. I believe there was a moment where the people of Iran stopped protesting and burning things to figure out who was screaming so loud.
As for Andy and I...I have to say that I am proud of us. We hung in there. We worked together. We took turns holding him down and pinning his arms to his side. We alternated between handing things to him that he would throw across the room and apologizing to everyone in the room. (And, by the way, no one cared - they all had kids too) We wiped the sweat from each others brow. We worked together like a real team. Dr. Phil would have been proud. Suffice it to say, Samuel was beside himself. It is hard to share this with you. I wish I could report that he sat there like an angel, sipping his juice and eating animal crackers. That he took his own money he'd earned from cutting lawns this summer and tipped the stylist himself. That he shared the Gospel with this woman and lead her to Christ. I wish. He didn't, although I believe their was a lot of praying.
Amazingly, this woman cut his entire head of hair. I'm not sure how. I'm not sure when. I'm fairly certain that I either blacked out for a moment or blocked out some moments. Who knows. At the end of the day, we got our little boy looking like a little boy. We paid the cashier and left the stylist a 67% tip and made her a beneficiary on our insurance policy. She was a trooper. I would have quit. In true Samuel, I'm only upset because I don't want to be doing this right now, fashion, he got down from the stylist chair of hell and skipped over to the train table. He squealed and giggled and screamed "Choo Choo" happily. Meanwhile, back at the chair of hell, I was picking crushed animal crackers off the floor and Andy was icing his knees.
As if that wasn't enough, we went to gather up our little boy from the train table to go to the car, when tantrumtastic reared its ugly head again. This time, as we picked him up, he managed the "armpit collapse" maneuver. This maneuver is executed, mostly over concrete or (as per Heidi) at the top of a flight of wooden stairs. You think you have your hands secured tightly under his arms as you go to lift, but then he straightens his arms out, thereby collapsing his armpit and giving you nothing to keep hold of. This forces the toddler to slide to the ground (or freedom) and the assailant (or parent) is momentarily stunned.
Somehow, we got him in the car...and somehow he managed to do something adorable 5 minutes later and we decided against putting him up for auction on EBAY. He looks adorable. He is adorable. He is simply going on two and somedays, REALLY good at it!
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