Tragic with a Side of Guillotine: A Milestone

“You could cut his hair short on the sides and keep the top long and style it up.” 

“And then I could just move to Brooklyn with my hipster kid too? 

“Heepster? Que es eso?” 

and this was 5 months ago…

This is one variation of the ongoing conversation that I have had with my Cuban mom about getting Santiago’s hair cut. If it were up to her she would have taken scissors to his hair months ago giving him a Tom Cruise style cut – Top Gun not Rain Man. Instead she refers to him as Einstein in the mornings due to the height of his hair. Hey it could be worse….

Husband, who went the whole summer not cutting his own hair until he looked slightly Wolverine-ish, obviously wasn’t concerned with cutting T’s hair. He was in my corner. Then, recently when we were talking over Skype he dropped the bomb, “Maybe we should cut his hair.”

Et tu, Brute?

Betrayed by Brute and alone on my limb, I’ve held on to T’s lovely, little, sweet-smelling head of light brown curls like a woman in the middle of rushing Class IV rapids. Why can’t I let this ship sail?

I thought back to Rafa’s first haircut. This, like that, is a major milestone but somehow it’s different. It’s harder this time. I thought back further. When I was pregnant with Rafa I had one dream of what she looked like. Beautifully round little face, big brown dancing eyes, and sparkly earrings. I remembered the earrings clearly. I had one of those dreams about Santiago too. Just one. And you know what stood out the most in that dream? You guessed it, his hair. The exact color it is now, long and wavy like a beach bum. Hmmmm… If I were a therapist, I’d say I was on to something.

Could it be that his hair is what I identify his babyness to and without it, he’s no longer a baby but a (gulp) big kid? Oh, say it ain’t so. If he’s no longer a baby but a big kid then that means I don’t have anymore babies – which oddly sends a current of excitement through my body at the same time as it sends a very sad one. It sounds so tragic, I know, but his hair is one of the last things that stands between being a mom of a baby and not and I’m sad about it. So I keep putting off cutting his hair until he looks like Einstein or is as old as him.

I know what comes next… the guillotine must drop…and soon because we leave for Dominican Republic in two weeks. Sometimes, I just wish that I could be more like one of those not-so-emotional moms, whose heart doesn’t break over every thing.