Snippet's in the bud

You can, apparently, fool a parent an infinite number of times.  That's why the shame is always on the parent.  Your toddler always conveys in clear, quite audible, cries and moans when he does not like the situation that you, the parent, have placed him in.  Yet that message never seems to really get through to the parent.  It's almost as if there's a disconnect in our brain when it comes to what we think our toddler should like and what he is telling us he likes or dislikes.  So we keep putting that toddler in the same situation, thinking that the toddler will get it this time and the result will be different.  Almost universally it isn't.

Case in point: Yesterday, we ventured to Northbrook Court for The Toddler's second professional haircut, at Snippet's Mini-Cuts.  Versions of the kid-friendly hair salon are sprouting up everywhere, it seems, and it's easy to see why. 

For most of us, at least most of us who are carriers of the Y chromosome, the haircut is viewed as a tedious, if not painful task only slightly less objectionable than having teeth pulled.

As a full-fledged carrier of the Y chromosome, I can say that my negative thoughts about haircuts started at an early age.  After all, few things, other than perhaps the dentist, are more terrifying for a child than being plopped on a barber chair, strangled with a cape, and attacked by a clipper-wielding stranger.

So why not attempt to make the haircut a more pleasant, comfortable experience for a child? That's what Snippet's and its kin try to do, complete with novelty car and animal stations and video monitors featuring current children's videos.

As Snippet's says on its website, its salons "are uniquely designed to capture a child's imagination and to welcome them into a wonderland where they feel safe and secure when they are approached for services."  This sounds like a dreamland, and the salons do look pleasing, at least to my adult eye.

But, as any parent knows, a child's dream world can turn into night terrors at any time.  That's what happened the first time we took The Toddler for his professional haircut.  Wonderland was no tea party.

So, of course, as parents, we had the temerity to do it all over again, thinking that things couldn't go worse.  They did -- go worse, that is, which only means that The Parents will be dragging The Toddler, kicking and screaming, up to Northbrook Court again in another two months.  The third time has got to be the charm, right?

In defense of Snippet's, I must say that, under challenging circumstances, their stylists do an incredible job.  The Toddler has somehow come out of his two professional haircuts unscarred (at least physically if not emotionally) and with a pretty good haircut.  That's enough to keep us coming back.

Here is the essay I wrote after The Toddler's first haircut experience:

Snippet's in the bud

The blow-by-blow account of The Toddler's day (okay, 5 minutes) in the barber chair.

The Toddler enters Northbrook Court to the red carpet treatment.  Trumpets are blaring. Confetti is falling. 

Oh, sorry, I'm letting my rather vivid imagination get the better of me.  So there were no trumpets.  And there was no confetti.  But The Toddler did seem to be in an unusually good mood, so much so that he didn't even fight getting into his stroller.  We're off to a promising start.

We arrive at the door of Snippets promptly at 10:30 a.m.  Right on time.  Things are still going good. 

I unleash The Toddler from the stroller, and he immediately runs to the firetruck chair.  This is good.  It's the one open seat, and The Toddler seems to be enchanted by it.  He's spinning the wheels, making sure that it's ready to go just in case a real fire does break out.  I'm thinking this is going to be a breeze.  All of my pre-Snippet's wariness was for naught.

But then a boulder is thrown in the road.  The Toddler's not getting the firetruck.  He's getting the racecar.  So I pick him up and try to place him in the racecar.  It's got a steering wheel.  Surely he'll like that.  But I sense that something is just not right in ToddlerLand.  He's apprehensive and has to be forced into the car. 

Then the stylist turns on the video.  (Snippet's offers a first-time haircut package that includes a videotaping of the experience for $25; the cost of a regular cut without the package is $18). The Toddler goes into deer-in-the-headlights mode, as if he's got a severe case of camera shyness.  Now this isn't all bad, he's just sitting there frozen while the stylist is busy snipping away.  The Toddler doesn't even seem to realize what's going on on top of his head.  He's not happy, but he's not per se unhappy, either.  I'm okay with that.

But then the stylist, who has the fingers of Edward Scissorhands but the personality of Al Gore, asks me to hold his chin.  This is for The Toddler's safety as she cuts around his ears. The Toddler doesn't like having his chin held, and he REALLY doesn't like having the hair cut around his ears.  He's clearly petrified now and it gets worse when she asks me to then hold down his arms and begins her cleanup work with the electric trimmer.  The Toddler is crying and now clearly unhappy with this experience. 

But then it is suddenly all over.  The video camera is turned off.  Mommy rips The Toddler from the chair and out of the store where she finds my friend The Lone Ranger and his two kids who have just gotten off the escalator.  I pay the $25 and give a $5 tip to Al.  In return I'm given a bag with the videotape of The Toddler's first haircut and a snippet of hair that will be used if we ever decide to genetically reproduce him.

The whole process took no more than five minutes, which, if my calculations are correct, comes to a $300-an-hour haircut.  If nothing else, they are efficient. 

And The Toddler came out of it perhaps mentally scarred but not physically scarred, which is in some ways the most miraculous achievement of all.

The haircut itself is, all things considered, pretty good.  Probably better than the haircuts I get for $10.95 at Bo-Rics, which also take about 5 minutes but with only half the fussing and crying.

If you don't believe my story, well, it's all on videotape, which I'm sure The Toddler will cherish for a lifetime (or use as reason to sue his parents for causing undue emotional trauma to a toddler).