Cate's first "real" haircut

Yesterday morning I took Cate to Supercuts to get her first real haircut. There are two reasons why she is just now getting her first official haircut at the age of three. First, it's taken her this long to grow enough hair to require a real haircut, and two, because Cate is Cate, we knew that this wasn't going to be easy.

We both spent days, weeks, talking about haircuts and how great they are and how everybody does it and how fun it is. She wasn't buying it. Finally, on the morning of, I got her in a place where she just might allow it, and she even decided to wear a dress in preparation for her new "fancy hairdo." We talked about it the whole way there, and all was fine until we walked through the door. Then, she became velcro on my leg. She wasn't having any of it! She wouldn't let go, she wouldn't look at anyone, she wouldn't take off her coat, and she sure wasn't going to get in that chair, even with me sitting in it already. I had promised her a trip to the petting zoo (aka. Petco) afterwards and to Target to spend her dollars Gr. Aunt Kathy and Gr. Uncle Larry put in her Valentine's Day card. I told her if we were leaving without a haircut, we were going straight home. She stood her ground, and I stood mine. I apologized, and out the door we went. Into the car, out of the lot, and then came the tears.... "But I DO want a haircut! I want one of the girls to cut my hair!" Ahhh, now we were getting somewhere. As I had been talking about haircuts, I had always talked about the girl who would be cutting her hair. Turned out, there was a guy (with a huge mohawk!!!) working that day, and that's who was available when we went in. How could I blame her? I wouldn't want someone who willingly did that to his own hair touching my hair! Maybe Cate was more intuitive than I gave her credit for. So we had a chat while I sat on the side of the road, blinkers on, and after we struck a deal, I did a U-turn at the Home Depot, and back we went to Supercuts.

With some shame, we went in again, and thank the Lord, Mr. Mohawk was on to someone else, and Ashley had just become available. I couldn't have asked for better. She was young, cute, knew her Disney princesses, and had the speed of Edward Scissorhands. I still had to sit in the chair and hold Cate, and Cate still was not thrilled with having to wear a cape, but we got through it. Bless Ashley's heart, she made it happen, even though I had to touch up a few spots in the back when we got home (those spots that were facing me during the cut!).

As we pulled away from Supercuts and headed across to the Petco petting zoo, I said to Cate, "So, did you just not want that boy to cut your hair?" Cate responded, "No," followed by a short pause and then, "He had funny-looking hair." :)