Baby Mojo’s first haircut

Baby Mojo was born with a head full of hair.  Literally from the very first instant we saw him he had a dark brown patch of hair on his head that only got longer and lighter as he got older.   At the very tender age of six months old his mother gave him his first haircut.

Around nine months old he was starting to look like a very young member of The Beatles or a background character in Fraggle Rock.  I entertained the idea of cutting his hair, but thought better of it.  There were a couple children’s barbershops in the area so I went about researching them.    Back in the days when we were a pair of Dual Income No Kids, I could just pop out and spend, without comparing costs.    Now I know that the cheapest salsa is at Costco, unless we want the green salsa, then we go to Wal Mart.

Less than two miles away there is a children’s barbershop, so I called them about fifteen minutes after they opened.  Ring. Ring. Ring. Answering machine.  Well, it’s well past the time that they should’ve opened, they aren’t there, so I’ll go someplace else. 

In a way this was a mixed blessing.  Do I really want his first proper haircut to be in some sissy place with plastic trains and airplanes?

Instead I went about looking for a local barbershop.  In my minds’ eye this place would be run by some crusty ex-Navy seal with an anchor tattoo on this bicep.  The place would be full of real men who drive pick- up trucks, open the door for women and curse like a sailor (except around children).  They’d ask me why I shave my head and I’d regale them with heroic tales of male pattern baldness and the fact that razors are cheaper than barbers.

In the end, we found a local, old school barbershop and we didn’t even go in.  It was 95 outside, the middle of the afternoon and the business was against the flow of traffic.  My manly ideals had be supplanted by laziness, heat and an unwillingness to fight traffic.   

I let Mom take him to the place with the plastic airplanes, which he was too young to sit in anyway.  Mom held him in her arms for five minutes while the barber snipped, clipped and cut.  The two of them came back home and Baby Mojo was as happy as a clam, although I hear he didn’t like the buzzing of the clippers too much.