The Tail's End

Liam had almost no hair when he was born--except that tail!

My sister came out to California for a visit at the very end of June. Sure, she wanted to spend some time with Liam, Eric, and I, but she also had a mission--to eliminate Liam's mullet. The tale of my son's tail is one well-known to our close friends and family. When Liam was born, he had little to no hair, except for a tiny little tail of hair at the base of his head. As he grew, the hair on the rest of his head just couldn't keep up with the thriving natural mullet in the back. Although he's almost two years old, I resisted cutting it for a long time. After all, it was practically the only hair he had on his head and was a reminder to me that, as much as he's changed over the past twenty months, this bounding little toddler and the tiny newborn that came out of me were one and the same. Also, I admit to having hopes--faint as they may have been--that at some point his little tail would begin to grow into cute curls. Alas, it was not meant to be, and recently even my loving mother's eyes had to admit that it was time to reduce the party in the back to an acceptable level.

Before his first haircut, Liam's mullet
reached his shoulders.

So before she hopped a plane for California, I told Erin--a long-time proponent of ending the tail--to pack her clippers. Considering Liam is hardly of an age to sit still and have his hair cut, she did quite a good job giving her nephew his first haircut. We put him in his highchair and distracted him with some yummy chicken taco chili, which served to keep Liam occupied enough to almost ignore Aunt Erin, who cut his hair while he ate. As you can see, by the time he was done with his supper his tail was at an end and he had his first cute little boy haircut.

Ta-da--no more tail!

And what do a mommy and auntie with access to a fancy digital SLR camera do with a cute little boy who just got a snazzy new haircut? Why, dress him in an adorable little outfit and take him out to for a photo shoot, that's what! Check out my next post to see some of the hard won results of our efforts.