Haircut of the Apocalypse

With the Little Guy's first birthday looming on the horizon, it was decreed that he must have a haircut. Well, my mother and I decreed it, quite emphatically I might add. T.G. was not as sold on it, because our previous attempt at Christmas time had resulted in a very um, interesting fringe of bangs. However, this was not anybody's fault. It was caused in full by my son not exactly grasping the need to sit still at six months old so my mother could shorten the giant sweep of hair which was falling into his eyes. (he was beginning to look like an infant Hitler, sans mustache, and I had started referring to him as the Tiny Dictator in my typical unPC way) Anyhow, the bangs had grown back in since December and he was once again sporting a Fascist comb-over. In addition to the Third Reich bangs, the hair over his ears had reached weird and epic proportions and fanning and waving like some sort of mutant cranial anemone. It had to go. Hence, the Haircut of the Apocalypse commenced at my parent's house yesterday. I need to preface this by saying that my mother is great at cutting hair. She's cut mine, she cuts my dad's, my niece's...pretty much everyone in our immediate family has been to Salon Mom. I took the Little Guy down, and she got out all her hair cutting stuff and we put him in the high chair in front of Barney. (Ok, I just want to point out here that this was his first time EVER seeing Barney. I don't do Barney. I don't really do TV, but if I did...Barney would at the bottom of the list, however desperate times and all. We just needed the Little Guy to sit still, if Barney got the job done...well then fine.) Barney didn't work. Not at all. At first things seemed ok, he was curious, but not upset. My mom was clipping away with the guard thing on the clippers and Rider was sort of passively keeping an eye on things. Then, with no warning, it all fell apart. He made a desperate grab for the clippers, and my mom was too fast for him so he missed. This led to a hardcore interest in the clippers for the Little Guy. He wanted them and was brooking no opposition. As my mother and I deemed it inadvisable to let him play with the hair clippers he decided it warranted a full blown temper tantrum. Within seconds the meltdown commenced full of wailing, red-faced fury, and copious tears. He flat out refused to allow any more hair to be cut and we once again had wiggly bangs and uneven areas. This was bad because in order to get an ok from T.G. I had to promise that we would not screw up. Things were, in fact, screwed up. Way screwed up. I tried everything. I even got a popsicle and let him hold it, which did nothing other than distract him for two seconds and coat his person in red, sticky, popsicleness. What we were left with was a hiccuping, semi-hysterical Little Guy, covered in goo, and half a haircut. The hair around his ears was nicely trimmed and the back was mostly ok, but the front was just...wrong. So, we decided to give him a break.
For six hours.
It kind of worked.
When we came back to the haircut at around six PM, he was much less miserable, at least until my mom actually started cutting. At which point, he returned to his wailing and wild fist waiving fury. This led to an odd dance between myself, my determined mother, and my windmilling child. With me chanting, "It's ok, it's ok, you're fine" punctuated with "Now! Now! I have his head still!" and my mom deftly snipping where she could, things evened up on his head. Eventually, we had an actual haircut with more or less even bangs, and a nice, symmetrical back. Besides, as my mother pointed out, I can just push his bangs to the side and no one will ever see the slightly ragged ends. Voila! No one was injured, Little Guy has a haircut, and T. G. may actually allow future styling at Salon Mom. (Although the hard part now is going to be convincing my mother to attempt this debacle again, sigh)