gone is our Natty Dread

Yesterday after dinner I took the kids to Fantastic Sams for haircuts.
We went to the Heritage Festival or, "The Vegetable" as little E calls it, and 3 different people called him a girl. Granted, they were all over 60, but still.

See, E was completely bald for his first year and a half. A total blond cue-ball kid.
When he finally got hair, it grew in as this great mess of blond curls. A cross between Gene Wilder and a blond Bob Marley. For the last year or more, he's continued to have between 3-6 dreadlocks in the back that would only come out with lots of detangler spray, a comb, and screaming.

E turned 3 last month and had yet to have a hair cut. We tried last fall, but he freaked out.
Then when he started having seizures and he had to have the EEG and the MRI, we said we'd never cut his hair, EVER. That's because he was so damn traumatized and scared of having all those electrodes stuck to his head. It took both G and I to hold him down for the half hour it took to paste those damn things on his head.
Ever since then, if anyone touched his head, he'd freak out.

I admit though, as much as I liked his natty dreads, part of me was getting really annoyed by the bird's nest on his head. So I packed them up and off to the bargain cuts we went. S loves having her hair cut, "to the shoulders, with long layers" she told the woman. She's a very fashion-savvy soon-to-be 8 year old.

E just said, "I DON'T WANT MY HAIR CUT!!!!"
But I sat in the chair with him. I told the lady, "I don't care if there's chunks missing. He's gonna move a lot and he'll probably scream. Just do what you can. And I don't want the square-faced little boy cut. I like his sloppy hair, so make it shaggy and chunky, okay?"
E had a toy radio and a book. He sat pretty well on my lap, but had to push every little piece of hair off of his cape. It took about 20 minutes to finish. My arms were covered with his hair, but we finished up with a fairly decent hair cut.

When I brought the kids home, G complemented S on her long layers, and then we both just stared at E. Mourning his blond baby curls, mourning the dreadlocks and the bird's nest that he'd kept for so long.
Now he looks like a proper boy, not an androgynous blond fairy child.

He looks older. Gone is our baby. Right now, we're all a little sad but happy enough not to have to deal with the dreads.