First Haircut

It may have become obvious in previous posts that Eliana's hair was getting a little long. Abba was hoping that we wouldn't cut it until she was 18 (or something like that), but it was beginning to get in her face, with long, split strands in the back. While it was tough (psychologically!) to cut our little baby's curls, it seemed like something that needed to be done.

Since we live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and there are a large number of children in the neighborhood, we had a few options for the haircut. We got a recommendation and made the appointment. The next step was prepping Eliana. A few days before, we told her that she was getting a haircut soon, and that she'd be meeting Julean, her stylist. Eliana didn't know what a stylist was, so we did some pretend haircuts.

When we got there, I thought that they would put her in the salon equivalent of a high chair. However, I soon found out that both of us would be putting smocks on, and she'd be sitting on my lap:





Eliana noticed that her smock had fun decorations on it. How come they stop doing that stuff once you're not a kid anymore?

A kid's haircut is different from an adult cut. The point is to distract her from the fact that her hair is getting cut. First, she munched on some string cheese:





But after a few minutes of that, she said, "All done, down!" Julean had barely started. This is where Julean pulled out the big guns: the nursery rhyme books.



I found it challenging to read Old McDonald and concentrate on the haircut. After a short time, I gave up and just concentrated on Old McDonald. I think Eliana did the same, because she wasn't paying much attention to the haircut at all.



Which was probably a good thing, Julean knew what she was doing.







Eliana was remarkably patient, or at least interested in the books. The entire haircut took about 20 minutes, which was longer than I expected considering how little hair she has! Here are some final views:





We were able to get a sample for her baby book, and apparently there's also a first haircut certificate we can pick up. What a milestone!

Eliana continues to be very communicative. One thing I noticed a few weeks ago is that she has started to make connections between different images she sees in her books or among her toys. For example, every night we read Good Night Moon, and she likes to point out "cow jumping (over the) moon." A few weeks ago we were reading the Runaway Bunny, and she noticed that in that book, there is also a picture of a cow jumping over the moon. As we read the Runaway Bunny, she looked for the Goodnight Moon book and opened to the page with the cow jumping over the moon, pointing out that this was the same image in the two different books. Or she sees a turtle in a book, and then she'll go find her little plastic turtle.

Eliana is also very attached to her little baby doll. She will talk about how the "baby sitting down" or push the baby in the toy stroller. Lately, she'll hold the baby and pat her gently on the head (as if comforting her) and say "do, do.." I asked our babysitter if she knew what this meant, and she said that in Trinidad (where she is from), this is French expression that means, "sleep, sleep..." It's so sweet to see how nurturing Eliana is toward this little baby doll.