Haircut Mayhem.

Children, this is what happens when you refuse to get your hair cut by a "professional" i.e. anyone besides your parents who are not hairdressers. When Missy was barely a month old, we took her to get her traditional head-shave for her full moon. She didn't even cry while Aunty Jenny's (SIL's aunt) electric shaver reverberated over her little head. It took many, many months for her hair to grow to the state when it needed a new cut and when that happened (she was about 18 months old), she just let Aunty Jenny snip away. Aunty Jenny snipped so much off that when we emerged 10 minutes later, contained-shock swept across the faces of our party.

Months later, Keat and I went for our haircut and took Missy along with us. As soon as my hairdresser started cutting my hair, she flew into an incessant crying fit. Several months after that we drove to our hairdresser again and before we could even park the car, she somehow recognized the place and started retaliating. We ended up taking her to Aunty Jenny again, not without a fight and peptalk. We had to tell her that Aunty Jenny was only going to comb her hair while she sat on her Daddy's lap.

Intermittently, my SIL has been giving her a couple of snips here and there just to keep it neat but at one point she refused to get her hair cut by anybody. One Sunday afternoon, after much coercion, she agreed to let us cut her hair so what did we do? We pounced on the opportunity and snipped off her fringe so much that she resembled Janeane Garafolo in Reality Bites. The picture above was taken a few weeks later. Obviously the responses we got were not favourable - tongue clicks and shaking heads which basically translated to "WTF were you guys thinking???!!!" Oh well...

Now this is what happens when you let a professional cut your hair, although this process took 2 site-visits, noodles and a promise to visit the bicycle store. We drove by the neighbourhood hairdresser which had just opened for business that morning. Since it was empty, we decided to take her for a "tour" to show her that there was no loud, vibrating noises and there was nothing to be afraid of. Still, Missy adamantly shook her head in disagreement. So we told her that we would return after having some Pontian noodles (which was crap, by the way) a few doors away. After our meal, we went back to the hairdresser who was already serving a few customers. Again, it took alot of coercion and pep-talking by us and 2 sweet-bribes by the hairdresser before she finally relented and sat on her Daddy's lap and let her hair be cut. See the wonderful results?

In the meantime, we have been prepping her up for her next haircut by reminding her of her "bravery" and sweet rewards. We seem to be on the right track. Let's hope it lasts.