Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011: Snip, snip

Getting chopped at the Chop Shop.

After the haircut.

Gavin got his first haircut yesterday. We took him to the Chop Shop and Chaz did the honors. Gavin was not into it. In part I think this was because Chaz didn't really give him time to warm up to him. He was just like, "Come here, kid!" which made Gavin cling to Stacy. In fact, Stacy ended up having to sit in the barber's chair and have Gavin on her lap. Don't get me wrong, though, Chaz was very good with Gavin and quite patient. I would take Gavin back in a heartbeat. Well, not really that fast since it's only been a day. But once he needs another haircut, anyway. Laura recommended the Chop Shop to us. It's where she gets her hair cut. She insisted they are great with kids and their website says so, too. I think it's a good sign that the photo on their site accompanying the kids haircuts info is this. I'm happy to say that Gavin did not cry much, though, like I said, he didn't welcome the process. I also did not cry. Though I do admit I was pretty anxious about the whole thing. I had to focus on the technical details of the event like getting him there on time and taking pictures to cope. As a result, I was a little left out of the haircut itself. Stacy called the shots from the chair and she and Chaz didn't consult me much. I took a lot of bad photos. But Gavin looks adorable, and that's all that matters. We got him what Stacy called a "puppy cut," meaning he just got a trim. A little off the sides and back and front. Chaz "took some wight off," as he put it so that Gavin's hair would curl up more easily. Losing the curls was not an option for us. So he looks very much the same and also totally different to me (Laura said so, too). Same handsome dude, though. Still the King of Curls.

On our way into the toy store.

Before we got his haircut we got donuts and ate them at Aunt Laura's house. And after the haircut we went to the toy store. So a pretty bitchin' day for a 2 and a half year old.

We also put up the Christmas tree yesterday. Stacy hasn't been feeling well so she and Gavin were down for a nap and so I decided to be industrious and get the tree out of the basement. We have a fake tree, which is super lame. I don't know why anyone thought, "Hey, let's make a pretend tree that people will put up for a month and then have to store in their houses for the rest of the year." Dumb. But, we have one. My mom gave it to us. So, you know, free. Last year we didn't put it up at all because we were in Florida for Christmas and Gavin was young enough that he didn't know the difference. This year he is starting to get wise to the idea of Santa Claus, although half the time he identifies Santa as "Noah," especially in olden-days Santa pictures. He has a Noah's ark toy and a book (gifts from my mom and from my dad's fiance Michelle, respectively) and, well, Noah is an old white guy with a beard. He and Santa could practically be twins. Though Santa would have to be the fat twin. You don't exactly get pudgy living on an ark during a flood, or whatever.

Anyway, I dragged our old tree out of our dusty crawl space and up stairs to our living room where I set it up all by myself. Keep in mind, this is a pretty good indicator that I love my family (in case anyone was in doubt) because I do not like putting the Christmas tree up. At all. Decorating it I'm okay with, but putting it up and taking it down I H-A-T-E. But Gavin seemed to really dig the tree he saw at my mom's house the other night and he also saw a giant tree with toys underneath it in the lobby of Campbell Ewald when we went to pick Laura up from work a couple of days ago. In fact, "toys under the tree" is his favorite part of having a tree. He has no concept that they're supposed to be new toys or even that they're supposed to be presents for him. Right now he's perfectly content to put his toys under the tree. Cars, mostly. I suspect it will be difficult to keep him from opening presents once we start putting them under the tree no matter who they're intended for. Between Gavin and the cat, who has a ribbon fetish, wrapping presents almost seems like a waste of time. Gavin showed no interest in putting ornaments on the tree, but Stacy and I had fun. We've got a lot of ornaments with good memories attached to them like when we put up, say, the purple six-armed monster, which was our tree-topper back when we lived in our apartment and had a very small table top tree that was actually just the top part of a larger fake tree (where the rest of that tree was I do not know). It did not stand up on its own and so I fashioned a tree stand out of an empty butter tub filled with styrofoam. I then covered the butter tub using a pair of these black satiny underwear that had candy canes or holly or something all over them that I had only worn once and did not find worth wearing again (they weren't comfortable, but yes I washed them in case you had even a fleeting question in your mind). I told Stacy not to tell people they were underwear, but then I told everyone anyway because I thought it was funny. I would totally still use holiday underwear as a tree skirt for our current tree. But thankfully I do not wear underwear that big.