Hairy Popsicles, Dull Scissors and Kodak Moments...

Biruk...before his haircut!

This past Sunday we were invited to an Ethiopian family's house for dinner.  We have gotten to know the husband, but just recently met his wife, who cooked for us that night.  After being there for a short time, she mentioned to her husband, who then mentioned to us that we really should cut Biruk's hair.  She wanted us to know that Ethiopian boys typically do not keep their hair long.  We have been talking about getting Biruk's hair cut for awhile, but honestly, we love his curls and had somewhat been procrastinating on it.  And then today happened.

We were on our way to a graduation party and ran into one of our Ethiopian friends who lives across the street, who we have become close to.  We hadn't seen her in awhile and the second she looked at Biruk she exclaimed something along the lines of, "Andrea...you need to cut his hair!  Ethiopians don't keep their hair long like that!"  I told her we were eventually going to do it and she more or less strongly encouraged us to do it sooner than later.  She then proceeded to tell us it was extremely easy to cut it ourselves.  "Just take a pair of scissors and cut it down as far as you can and then take electric hair clippers and buzz the rest of it.  So easy, Andrea.  You guys can do it yourselves."  She then told us that there would be lots of Ethiopians at her son's graduation party (which we were attending the next day), and that was the straw that broke the camel's back!

Enter today.  We woke up early and did our usual Saturday morning yard sale run.  We came home and decided to take a nap for a couple of hours, and then figured that we could cut Biruk's hair...ourselves...right before our first graduation party (we had three to attend).  We put him in his high chair, gave him a snack, and Nate started cutting away.  While I wish that I could say that it went smooth, it was everything but.  We tried the electric cutter first...epic fail.  Biruk's hair was ridiculously thick.  Next, Nate just started cutting pieces of hair out with one of the worst pair of scissors ever known to man kind.  All while this was going on, I was trying to entertain Biruk...who was screaming at the top of his lungs...by dancing, singing, and doing whatever tactics came to mind.  I then got the bright idea to get him a Popsicle.  He loves those.  Little did I know that too would be disastrous.  As Nate cut chunks out, the hair dropped onto Popsicle sticking to it all over.  I about threw up.  I rinsed the Popsicle, attempted to entertain some more, put a movie in, and nothing would work.  In the end, we wound up with a very traumatized boy.  Let's just say that it looked somewhat like a lawn that had been cut by a slow lawnmower with a dull blade.  Not good.

Not exactly loving our make shift hair salon...this picture doesn't even come close to showing our awesome work!

Not loving the Hair Cuttery either.

We then got the idea that if we could give him a bath and put some hair product in, maybe, just maybe, it would look decent enough to attend our grad parties.  That was wishful thinking.  Getting the hair wet just made for a matted down version of a mess.  Nate and I looked at each other and knew there was only one option.  Head down to the local Hair Cuttery.  An hour later, another set of tears later (this time even harder and louder and now in public), $17 later, we had finally done it.  Our baby's first hair cut.  While I am sure this day will go down in Biruk's memory book as "less than ideal and not your Kodak moment," he looked pretty stinking cute and in the end he even passed approval with our Ethiopian family!  First time parenting...you've got to love it.

First Haircut Finished!