Second-born’s first clip hardly a hair-raising experience

The second 2-year-old from the Team Jordon headquarters got a first haircut. It’s sort of ceremonious for us, as we’ve adopted the custom of waiting until after the second birthday. According to the superstition, if you cut a child’s hair before he or she turns 2, it will lose its curl. I don’t really believe the myth, but we made it something of a ritual anyway, ya know, for kicks. There’s another superstition out there that, to me, seems just as a silly – that after your first child, any kids to follow are easier. Our youngest, Osiah, is anything but easier than big brother Caleb, and Caleb was, shall we say, very energetic when he was his brother’s age. Still, baby Si trumps Caleb’s zeal in almost every category. And he screams much louder than Caleb ever did. When Caleb’s ’fro was trimmed for the first time, he wailed in the barber’s chair like he was suffering from demonic possession. He and I both are scarred from the experience. So naturally, I was expecting worse than the worst for Si’s first trip to the barber. Si’s hair is twice as much trouble. It’s more like mine – thick and so kinky that when he was a newborn it formed dreadlocks on its own. We still have the little baby dreads as proof. Grooming his hair was a workout, and they don’t make combs with strong enough teeth to rake through it. Usually we used our hands to comb through his hair once he had enough water and conditioner in it. For a while it would form little ringlets, but once it was dry, it pretty much shriveled up into an auburn buckwheat. For this reason he was voted Baby With the Best Hair by the ladies at his day care. He has cool hair and all, but it had to go. I was dreading a repeat of Caleb’s catastrophe, and I was ready to apologize when we walked into Larry’s Afro Barbering and Styling Shop. When it got to be Si’s turn to ride in the chair, the strangest thing happened. The clippers buzzed his hair down to almost nothing, and Si sat perfectly still, watching in the mirror with a blank expression, and toward the end he fell asleep. One son’s hair is too much drama to cut, the other’s is too much to let grow.