Babylocks

Ethan was born with hardly any hair at all, just the finest brown fuzz all over his little scalp. Emma had soft blondish-brown waves on the very top of her head. It was so appropriately distributed, so planned by their Creator; the girl had hair and the boy had none. We loved watching it get longer and longer. It represented how far they had come. Emma looked more and more feminine as her hair started to grow down the back of her neck. I love shampooing it in the tub and how much longer it seems when it's wet. Rodney thought the cutest thing ever was watching her brush the hair out of her eyes with a little flick of her wrist. Ethan's hair got curly. When he got sweaty outside playing, I would style and scrunch it with my fingers and the curls were very defined. That made me so happy for some reason. I could see the pride in his daddy's eyes at the beautiful curls that must have come from his side of the family.

After a while, Emma's hair was getting in her eyes more and more. A ponytail was necessary. It started to look a little messy, a little unkempt. Ethan's started to straighten a little on the top. It was flipping out behind his ears, and it had a longer section on the crown of his head. I told my hairstylist sister that the time was coming. I was preparing myself for the big snip-snip. Rodney had been dropping hints for the longest time. He wanted his son to have a boy haircut.

I can see now how people get attached to their kids' hair. The first hair cut means that what used to be permanently bonded to your child...is gone forever. Now, your child looks even less like the baby you held in your arms with the wispy, soft and curly baby locks. They now have a structured, straight edge, big kid look.

When the time came, I was nervous but ready. I stood by with the camera and snapped picture after picture of my big two-year-olds sitting in the barber chair and getting their hair cut by their Aunt Amy. I love that my sister could be the one to do it. I think they would've been afraid of a stranger, or maybe less cooperative and calm. I was so impressed with my big kids sitting there so still and patient, wearing the haircut cape in the booster seat.

After Amy made the first clip, she held the lock out toward me and asked if I wanted to keep it. When I said no and it fell to the floor, it seemed like the people in the shop stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me:

Had they heard me correctly? Was this mother really rejecting the first beautiful lock of hair from her son's head?

Gasp!

It struck me that this was not the first time that I was asked if I wanted to keep something that had been removed from my child. The nurses had asked me if I wanted to keep the umbilical cords. No. For some reason, I felt like I should apologize for my lack of sentimentality. I know they have some medical value, but I guess we'll take our chances. I don't want that lump of black flesh that they clearly do not need anymore. I definitely don't want to tape that dead skin into their baby book. Likewise, I did not want to keep Ethan's foreskin. I know people do this. Otherwise, they wouldn't be asking me. That's fine. I see why you may feel an attachment to anything that was a part of your baby or something that literally connected the two of you.

Go ahead and keep your child's foreskin, umbilical cord or hair. I'm sure he or she will appreciate that very much someday.

Forgive me, Ethan and Emma, but yours were thrown out.

I guess I would view it as pretty similar to keeping a child's scab from their first skinned knee: not necessary and, I'm sorry, but pretty gross.

I was not disgusted by the hair.... It does strike me a tad creepy, but I do understand. It's just that I have no use for it. I have countless pictures of the babies with their hair before it was cut.

And that's all I need.