It had been a long while since my son had a haircut. It really wasn’t for any other reason than procrastination and the fact that he just didn’t give a single bother.

His hair was swiftly approaching a Musketeer’s length, though, so we started trying to work a haircut into our busy summer schedule (and continuously failing, of course). Heck, we were saving money at least, right? So more time passed and his hair just got longer.

It seems like a lot of young boys these days are rockin’ some pretty medieval-length hair styles. Some people get a bit heated about gender issues and such, which my wife and I didn’t really care about, we were more concerned about him looking like Animal the Muppet after a ride in a laundry drier. And shampooing the shaggy mop wasn’t exactly a joy, especially with all the stiffness from taking to the pool like a fish in the summer heat.

So, one day we finally veered off course from some errand around town and made it happen. We were all a bit excited since he said he wanted it short; it was going to be a big change. My wife kept double, triple and quadruple checking if he was ABSOLUTELY 1000% SURE he wanted it short, and not just a trim. He answered for the fourth or fifteenth time, “YES!” growing annoyed with the pestering.

I knew why she was trying to tip the scales to a less dramatic cut; she knew he was going to look so different. She was concerned he wouldn’t like it, and also secretly concerned she wouldn’t either.

It took a while. The woman cutting his hair was really systematic about taming the jungle on his head. And because it lasted so long, my wife and I took turns coming over and checking it out, seeing it in progressive phases.

Little by little our young son was looking cleaner-cut and seemed to age a year for each inch the fell to the floor.

When she was done, he looked into the mirror and smiled, saying, “I’m older now.” I laughed, and my wife may have teared up a tad.

For the rest of the day, we’d keep getting internally startled a little when we saw him. Who was this boy? What had she done??? She’d stolen our little guy from us and sent us home with this young man! Ah well, she did a great job and we tipped her well.

Parents can’t keep their kids young, it’s really unhealthy to try to, but even though we may all know this and work towards them growing up, GOOD GOD it can be difficult sometimes.