First Haircut

My original plan had been to wait and get Ella's hair cut for the first time when we go to Disney World in January, but I reached a breaking point a week or so ago.  Her hair was just a MESS -- constantly in her face (she hates having it pulled back), she would get food in it, and she'd developed the oh-so-lovely habit of putting it in her mouth.   I was done.

The problem, though, turned out to be finding somewhere to take her.   I thought surely there would be some kind of kid-friendly hair-cuttery around here, but I was wrong.  I don't have a salon or hairdresser that I go to on a regular basis at all, and I wasn't willing to risk a SuperCuts or Great Clips disaster.  So we wound up driving to Durham -- yes, it's as ridiculous as it sounds that we drove an hour each way to get the kid's hair cut.  (We did have dinner at The Cheesecake Factory -- where we saw 'Canes announcer John Forslund! -- so we had that little bonus as well.)

She got really upset in the car when we were about 15 minutes away -- no idea why.  She's usually a great traveler, so I don't know if she was just tired of riding or what.  But that didn't bode well for her being thrown into a new situation with strange people, which is a tenuous scenario in the best of times.

We tried sitting her in one of the little kiddie chairs they had when we first got there, but she didn't like that idea too much.  I wound up holding her, and she did pretty well after that.  By the end of the whole thing, she was even smiling.  The people at the salon were super-nice, even when she was
wailing away.

I wound up just having them trim it up and make it tidier -- I think she took off around an inch, maybe.   She also got a few little layers put in to bring out her curls in the back a bit more.


And because I'm a sucker, I wound up getting their "First Haircut" package -- it came with before and after pictures, a lock of her hair, and a little certificate.  Too much.

Here's the finished product (complete with her lollipop reward):