Haircuts and Piercings

The life of a new human being is made up of many "firsts". The first avacado eaten, the first poop, the first trip on a boat, airplane or automobile. Any and everything is the first of this or that, and when one is a toddler, after a while, your toddler has settled into life into the culture into which they have been brought and you wonder if life has become boring. We compensate for this by enriching them through "experiences" which are often toted by brochures and word of mouth-sending them to summer camp, piano lessons, or enrolling them in the nearby charter of the local girl scouts; troupe 327. It's what's we do. Parents strive to make their children's lives interesting.

"Firsts" are not to be confused with milestones, which are culminating events marking some grandiose event. Some milestones are graduating from high school or college, and when they happen, all of your life can be divided into before and after these milestones. The things we have learned on those journeys.

One milestone, (I'll call it a milestone, because once you have it done could technically not be ever done again) that my wife and I are engaged in a fierce debate over when to have our daughters ears pierced. Apparently in the Latin American community, it is common to get your daughters ears pierced when she is 6 months old, and to not follow through with this is a gross injustice to Latin culture which will undoubtedly create an identity crisis later on in life. The Scandinavian in her father is arguing the position for age 18 to be an acceptable time for piercing as women in the old country did not trouble themselves with such trifle decorations and that she could have that when she had the money and the courage to walk into a salon and pay for it herself. I thought that a mathematically supported compromise would be 9 years old, but apparently that is unreasonable. However, a nugget of hard currency for my position in the ear piercing debate came across my desk when Ava got her first haircut yesterday afternoon. How I will use this experience to do my bidding I'll get to later.

It was ugly. Not the haircut, but the experience. Ava's cousin Kirsten joined us and first modelled her hair being cut in order to assuage Ava's trepidation. She sat in the chair as Mary Ann shuffled around her coming in from the top, side and bottom like an artist chiseling away at stone. Tapping cutting, tapping cutting. When was all said and done, she came off the chair. Transformed into a smileling princess complete with beaming smile. This did not win our daughter over.

There was crying. Shreiking. Wailing and wincing. Bribes were made with oatmeal cookies and guarantees of privileges back home if only she'd sit through the snipping of barbers shears. She reluctantly agreed as long as Lisa held her hand. I watched from a distance, convinced that this was going to be a traumatic experience that would forever scar her, one that I could use to my advantage when she entered a similar beauty palace at the promise of having a red hot poker lanced through her earlobes. "Do you remember how much her haircut frightened her honey? And you want to piece her ears too!" I win. Period.

In the end, we compromised with a trimming of her split ends which would just make her hair easier to comb. We weren't even charged for the cutting and both Lisa and I left feeling victorious and indebted to Ava on a number of promises that we'd have to deliver on when we got home. Years from now when she decided to get her ears pierced on her own initiative, I'll go with her and provide the necessary counsel that fathers do. A hand to grasp and a sundae afterwards to show them off in a public place. I imagine Ava sitting across from me in the delicatessen proudly posing to any and everyone who might be looking by tossing her hair back and flashing them pretty danglies at every chance. Sitting there happily, completely unaware of all the talk, compromise, culture differences and love over the years that led up to that moment.