MY BABY'S A JAR HEAD

I gave the boy his first haircut last night.

The biggest mistake I made??

...I did it while the wife was at a meeting.

I knew the boy's first haircut would be important to her. I'm not stupid. It's a pivotal moment in the kid's life. I know it's a pivotal moment because in his Baby Book, there's a spot where you write down the date of the kid's first haircut. That's how I know which moments are important and which aren't ... if there's spaces for documentation in the baby book.

First haircut? Important.

First wet fart? Not so important.

The boy has needed a haircut for a few weeks. Only in the back of his head though. He's got patches of long blonde hair in the back that were threatening to turn into a rat tail which if I had allowed it to form would have solidified us as authentic white trash.

If your toddler has a rat tail...you're white trash.

I received that tidbit of information from a White Trash Baby Book.

So anyway, last night the kid's sitting on my lap, intently watching his "Baby Mozart" tape for the bazillionth time.

I'm running my fingers through his hair. It sounds really perverted for a father to run his fingers through his baby's hair, but screw it. I like to do it, I'm not a perv, I love my kid. End of discussion.

There's a pair of scissors nearby. He's sitting abnormally still.

The perfect time for a haircut.

Now then ... I've never cut another human being's hair in my life. For a brief time when I was 14, I wanted to be a hairdresser. I remember my Aunt Rosie asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I racked my 14 year-old brain to think of a job where no math, science or history would be required, since I hated all of them.

"A hairdresser," I blurted out.

Rosie stiffened in her seat and then had a long talk with my parents who always looked at me with sad long faces for the next four years. Their teenage son wanted to be a hairdresser. Where did they go wrong?

Anyway, it's safe to say I never became a hairdresser. The main reason for changing my career goals was probably because I couldn't handle the whole "penis in the ass" thing. More power to you gay guys who have no problem with things in your ass. I've never had anything bigger than a doctor's finger in my ass and don't plan on experimenting anytime soon.

Anyway...what were we talk....oh yeah...my son's haircut.

...How the hell did I get from my son's hair to anal probes??

Anyway...he's sitting on my lap and I carefully cut off these long locks of hair behind his head.

Then I got the hair that was coming down over his ears. It was a bunch of really fine blonde stray hairs, so I had to be careful to get those. If the kid jerked his head while I was cutting his hair, I felt confident that I'd poke an eye out with the scissors and then I'd have to write a entry about him stumbling around all blind and shit like yesterday.

He sat still the entire time and truthfully, I did a pretty good job on him. His hair is almost layered in the back like the cool kids have.

I was pretty proud of myself.

You know...until the wife got home.

"YOU DID WHAT?!?!" she yelled when I told her of my experiment.

"I cut his hair," I said. "It looks pretty nice really."

"Without ME here?" she said.

Now, I'm no idiot. Like I said earlier, I KNEW this was an important moment in his life.

That's why I saved a curl of his hair in a paper towel.

Duh.

For some strange reason, this lock of hair didn't really make things all better like I thought it would.

Susie then patiently tried to explain to me the importance of certain moments in the kid's life and how we should "share" them. Like his first steps, his first laugh ... and his first haircut.

I was then struck with a revelation that would fix everything.

"Well," I explained in my infinite wisdom. "It's not so much a haircut as it is a trim. So technically, you just missed his first trim. Which is no big deal. There's not even a space for his first trim in his baby book."

That excuse flew like a chicken.

Needless to say, Susie's having a hard time looking at the big picture. She can't see that the kid has a good looking head of hair now with no wild assed hair in the back of his head.

All she cares about is that she wasn't the one to snip the hair off his skull.

So I've devised Plan B.

I'm going to fix things and make it right.

All I need is my boy, his copy of "Baby Mozart", the lock of hair that I saved...and some Super Glue.

Then she'll be able to cut it herself.

Told you I'm no idiot.