The Boy had his first haircut today. This had been a long time coming: like his sister, he was born with quite a lot of hair, and although it didn’t grow quite as quickly as hers, by his first birthday he already had some rather impressive curls all around his head. They looked adorable, almost golden and cherub-like, so much so that some people had started mistaking him for a girl (despite the blue clothes). This in itself was reason enough for my husband to demand that I took the Boy for a haircut, and I had to agree with him that the whole look was quite messy and uneven (something to be expected with baby hair that has never had a proper trim). The fringe, in particular, was starting to be a real problem. I had managed to give it a trim twice before, when it was getting long and starting to go into his eyes, but in the recent while, every time I tried to do it, he would just pull away from my hand and get upset. When the choice became one between giving him, at best, a wonky fringe or plucking his eyes out with the scissors, I knew it was time to book a proper hairdresser’s appointment.

Of course, I took him to my own hairdresser. I’ve been going there for the last five years, and the Girl has also had all her haircuts with him (her first haircut was on her actual birthday, but I couldn’t bring myself to take the Boy in for a haircut on his… It took me an additional two months to build up the courage). In passing be it said, I am not keen at all on the way that men seem to go about going to the barber’s, at least at the place my husband goes to: I’ve never been able to understand why anyone would be happy simply to queue up and go to whomever is next free, rather than go to the same person every time, risking a completely haphazard result that they will then have to pay for! If I’m honest, I think it will take me a really long time to let the Boy join the undiscerning crowd.

Before the haircut itself, this morning, I didn’t think I was going to be too bothered. I did go prepared with an envelope to collect the first locks of hair in, but I didn’t give much thought to the way I was feeling – nor to how the experience itself would actually feel. Matters were helped also by the fact that a friend was there having her hair dyed (the Boy’s haircut was actually slotted in between her having her hair dyed and the styling that would come afterwards): this really distracted me from the magnitude of the experience, although I felt it was important to tell her that she was going to witness very momentous stuff.

It was during the haircut itself, while the beautiful ringlets were falling off (rather faster than I would have liked, a fact necessitated also by his reluctance to being touched or sitting still) that it really struck me: I was excited to see him turn into a proper little boy under my very eyes, but I was feeling sad and wistful too. My baby was definitely no longer a little tiny baby, he had now morphed into a toddler, still angelic but with something of the innocence of babyhood gone. It was as if he had grown by a year in an instant, and this made me excited and sad at the same time.

My hairdresser was amazing about it, which really helped. Straight away, he reassured the Boy (so, indirectly, me) with the words ‘You look much more like a boy now, mate’ (I don’t like the word ‘mate’, but I have to accept that my boy is growing up in this culture and he is very likely to be addressed as that many more times in his lifetime…).Then, as if he could perceive my mixed bag of emotions, he waived the charge, saying that he doesn’t charge for first haircuts – as if he could clearly see that, for mothers like me, cutting away their baby’s first locks is like cutting a piece out of their own heart in order to store it in an envelope; the hair will grow back, but that piece of heart will forever stay in the baby memory book.

I know I could easily be accused of senseless sentimentality (it *is* just hair, after all, and as I’ve just said, it *does* grow back)… Nevertheless, after coming home, simply putting away the envelope of hair did not feel enough. I separated one of the longer ringlets and stored it in a clear plastic pocket that I stuck inside of a folded piece of card: this way, we can always keep an even clearer memento of today, and of his babyhood. And I also brought out an envelope that I hadn’t looked at in quite some time, the one which stores the Girl’s first locks of hair (many fewer because, being a girl, she didn’t need such a severe trim). This made me nostalgic for my other baby, the one is is now so big, ever growing in independence and, inevitably, in distance from me. One day, they will both be able to go to the hairdresser’s without me, they will choose who they go to and how much they trim off (and the Boy might well follow in his father’s footsteps and not care whether the person he sees is his regular one or not): that day is a long way off, but even still, in these first locks of hair, I can see its shadow looming large, and I am already dreading it a little bit. I love my babies growing up, but I also wish I could keep them small, safe and mine forever. Whoever knew how much hope and apprehension, how much nostalgia and anticipation, and how much love could pour into a tiny plastic bag together with a lock of hair…?