Adam: the missing haircut
Yesterday’s Adam update was the result of three separate drafts, the first two of which were callously cast aside by the server as it pretended to “Save” them. This loss of work doesn’t happen often, but when it does you can bet there’s some gnashing. Often I can recall more or less verbatim what I’d typed, but the monthly Adam updates are usually cobbled together from notes collected over the entire month, so sometimes things that are lost stay lost. It wasn’t until I was in bed last night that I realized I’d mentioned a haircut but there were no pictures to prove it.
This photo was originally intended to go into the monthly update. This was taken on Haircut + 1, after the sobbing had subsided. We’ve cut his hair before, but this month we bought a pair of electric clippers to make the process more efficient. By “process” I mean “the part where I sit on his chest and try to keep his teeth clear of Magda’s face”, and by “efficient” I mean “mentally scarring”. This was the first haircut that reminded me of “Full Metal Jacket” and afterward he looked about that traumatized. His cheeks didn’t return to their normal color for a disturbingly long time and he looked so generally deloused that the photographs we took in the immediate aftermath of the shearing aren’t for public consumption.
The above picture shows him atop the elephant-themed slide at the playground in Nova Gorica’s center. This slide was the site of another great trauma a few weeks ago, when a horrible little troll of a girl was hiding under the slide and thought it would be fun to scream at Adam from the shadows (Magda assumed mental illness). It was not fun and it was some time before he would go near the slide again, so this photo represents a triumph of sorts, a testament to Adam’s resilience.
His hair is almost grown back, too.
Which reminds me that a friend had heard people – people close to her who should have clued her in – quote from FMJ and assumed that the movie was a comedy when she finally decided to watch it.
Trauma indeed.
Comment by Jane — Friday 13 October 06 @ 13.04 MDT+2.00
I had assumed that you would wait at least another year before shipping the A-bomb off to military school. Or do you just want him to look like his papa?
Jane, that is a frightful tale, indeed. I am shuddering. I am especially fearful that some painfully misguided aspiring screenwriter out there will get the idea to recast FMJ as a comedy. For the love of all that is holy, NO!
Comment by jdog — Friday 13 October 06 @ 13.33 MDT+2.00
jdog: she survived and actually loved the movie but nurtured an understandable resentment against said friends for a while.
sgazzetti: regarding the horrible little troll of a girl (heh), did either you or Magda seek out her parents and ambush them with a scream each time the troll girl screamed at Adam? If it weren’t effective at sending a message it might at least have been satisfying.
Comment by Jagosaurus — Friday 13 October 06 @ 14.03 MDT+2.00
Jag:
We did consider conducting some sort of impromptu remedial toddler-control class right there, but the urchin appeared to be unescorted. There’s parenting for you.
Comment by sgazzetti — Friday 13 October 06 @ 14.18 MDT+2.00
A personal question which, being personal, you can totally ignore.
I’m not sure if it’s a Slavic thing, although my lovely spouse, a non-Slav, insists that it is, but have you saved Adam’s first haircut clippings in a hermetically sealed envelope somewhere in the depths of your sock drawer?
No, it’s not the hirsute reward somewhat akin to the teeth-under-the-pillow practice (and what did one’s parents do with all of those teeth).
Just wonderin’. I confess that I have saved the first hairs from both of our kids. Sometimes, I take a peak at them, still wondering how much the color has changed and how the soft texture of their original hair has hardened as they’ve grown older. Must be the natural need to grow a helmet to life’s troubles, I guess.
Comment by DarkoV — Friday 13 October 06 @ 14.52 MDT+2.00
I should have known there would be no adult supervision.
Comment by Jagosaurus — Friday 13 October 06 @ 15.23 MDT+2.00
Just as a point of curiosity, Darko, my (American) parents saved my first curls. My (Japanese) husband and I saved our son’s because Japanese people often have shuji (calligraphy) brushes made out of the first hair clippings. We haven’t had it made yet, but we will.
Comment by jdog — Saturday 14 October 06 @ 06.27 MDT+2.00
jdog,
Wow! That Japanese custom sounds fabulous. I don’t know when I would tell my child that I’ve done that, however. Especially if they are not attuned to that unique custom. I picture your child, a teenager already running on fuel that you’re da man and you’ve been keeping him/her down, and now finding out that you’re using parts of their body (they are so possessive, those teenagers) to make shuji brushes.
Ooooh Weeee. Not a pretty sight. Now, if you tell that teenager the the brush was made from their sibling’s hair? Well, then you’re carrying a cool license and your passage through their teenage years will be smooth.
But, back to your comment. I’m trying to think of what can be made in the States with one’s child’s first hairs without resulting in a visit form Chile Protective Services.
Comment by DarkoV — Saturday 14 October 06 @ 19.56 MDT+2.00
We didn’t preserve all the shearings from his first haircut for any DIY stuff, Darko, but we did save a lock of his hair (q.v.). We also have the dried-up twiglet that dropped off his navel around here somewhere, in case anyone wants to make a toothbrush out of it.
Comment by sgazzetti — Sunday 15 October 06 @ 14.02 MDT+2.00
JDS: You saved that foul thing from his navel? Oh, lord. I was so happy to be rid of that little grostequery. Sorry– maybe your son’s wasn’t foul.
Darko: Excellent points. I will probably keep the brush until my grandchild is born and give it to him/her so that then the grandchild can have magical control over papa via some kind of first-hair-clipping voodoo. Perhaps if you use the brush to write “eye of newt” etc., you can get your parent to do whatever you wish. Then I would easily be the coolest grandparent in the world.
Comment by jdog — Sunday 15 October 06 @ 21.54 MDT+2.00
jdog, sounds to me that you are well on the way toward “coolest grandparent in the world.”. When you get there, write a blog entry or two offering those of us who are at the cool bus depot, trying to score a ticket.
Mr. sgazzetti, that twiglet? Isn’t it supposed to be buried with the tree that you were supposed to plant on the day after Adam’s birth? You know he’ll be looking for foliage when he gets to the age where he’ll be doing that liquid signature signing that all boys are fond of.
Comment by DarkoV — Monday 16 October 06 @ 01.30 MDT+2.00
Oh, and one more thing, Mr. sgazzetti, thanks for linking to that giftwrapped lock of hair (Pink ribbon? You, sir, are a most confident and unsuspicious dad) and thanks for not linking to that “twiglet” of which you spoke.
I look really, really bad when I’m squirming from not knowing where to put myself.
Comment by DarkoV — Monday 16 October 06 @ 01.35 MDT+2.00
Next time avoid all that hassle – shave his head and then give him one of these: http://www.babytoupee.com/
Comment by simon — Monday 16 October 06 @ 10.38 MDT+2.00