I've been dreading this day...

...ever since those precious curls started to appear around 7 months:

I have had several people tell me that their child had curls just like James and that after the first haircut, the curls were no more.

So I did what most Mamas of babies with sweet baby curls would do, and put off his haircut as long as possible.

It didn't bother me that he was constantly getting called a girl by strangers,

"Is her hair naturally curly?"

even though he would be dressed all in blue and have dinosaurs on his shirt and playing with a toy truck
(although it did irk me a little to find out that Dada doesn't correct people when they tell him his daughter is cute - he just says Thanks).

The two things that finally convinced us (me) it was time were 1) the fact that James, Dada, and I were constantly brushing his hair out of his eyes and it was starting to irritate him, and 2) his hair is actually past his shoulders:

Nice rat tail!

In the days leading up to his haircut, I decided to take a few pictures (353 pictures, to be exact).  If the haircut was catastrophic, I wanted to document his last few days with long, flowing, beautiful locks.

I kind of think he looks like a little model here

Here, not so much.  I think he may be mad at me some day for posting this one on the internet...

Right after I took this one, he colored on our white bedspread

And then he wondered why I took the crayons away

Starting to get angry at me for taking pictures of him in the tub

 And finally, today, the big day arrived

We're ready to go!

 He was really good throughout the entire haircut.  His Charlie Brown book, Dada's iPhone, and the football game on tv all helped.

 

All done!

 Doesn't he look handsome?

And he still has his curls!!  I don't think the haircut could have gone any better - there were no tears shed by James or Mama, which in and of itself constitutes a huge success.

And of course I had to take some more pics of his new 'do once we got home

 As you can see, we ended up not taking a whole lot off - just enough to keep it out of his eyes for a while and make him look more like a little boy.  I think Dada wanted to cut it shorter, but knew better than to disagree with a pregnant, hormonal Mama. 

 I told him James could maybe get a shorter hair cut in a year.  Or two.