My Daughter's First Haircut

My daughter's first haircut, at two years old, was a big event. My mother insisted on coming. My father came to take photos. We brought a stuffed elephant for moral support.

The barber, an older man named Mr. Jackson, has been cutting hair in our neighborhood for forty years. He's cut my father's hair, my brother's hair and my hair. He put a booster seat on the chair and a little cape around my daughter's neck.

She cried for the first thirty seconds. Then Mr. Jackson started singing "The Wheels on the Bus" in a deep, rumbly voice, and she stopped crying and stared at him in total fascination.

He gave her a lollipop when he was done. He also gave me a tiny envelope with one curl of her hair inside, and wrote the date on it. "For the baby book," he said. "I do it for every first."