The haircut

I liked his little urchin look, but pretty soon, everyone started telling us that Eli needed a haircut. And I suppose, once it started getting in his eyes, causing him to rub them nonstop, it was time:

Plus, he was starting to use his mop for pea storage:

So, off we went:

And wow, what a great place! They have an adorable little chair for the littlest kids to sit in … but … uh, Eli preferred to sit with daddy, and he seemed mighty suspicious:

The haircut lady popped in an Elmo videotape, and away we went. The combing started off pretty well:

And then, with the very first snip, DISASTER!!!!!!!!!

Eli Monkey HATE HAIRCUT!

He screamed through the entire thing. He twisted, he arched his back, he fought, he climbed up daddy’s shoulder, he clenched his little fists. And through the entire thing, the haircut lady calmly chuckled, combed, and snipped. At one point, she said, “he gets mad, doesn’t he?” And a few minutes later, “boy, he’s pretty strong. He’s stronger than daddy!”

It was pretty epic. I’m not gonna lie. We were shocked at the intensity of his rage. I mean, he’s definitely been in a “don’t mess with me” phase, lately, freaking out when we change his diaper when he’d rather be doing something else, for example. But for Pete’s sake. Elmo didn’t even make a dent. But, incredibly, the haircut lasted only 10 minutes, and when he was done, ta-da!

In retrospect, we probably should have gone a lot shorter.

See the rest of Eli’s 14th month (so far) here, including some very bad behavior (coloring all over our stepstool), his adventures with eating fruit from the peel in, and his very first visit to his blow-up swimming pool outside! With actual water in it!