Zeben, the Big Kid

Lena and I have been debating for months about when to cut Zeben's hair. The idea that we should cut it has been suggested several times (mainly by both of his grandmothers) ever since Zeb turned one (so almost a year ago), and until recently we felt pretty strongly about leaving it as it was. In the past couple months, I've been wavering a bit as his hair has grown scragglier and gotten long enough to get stuck in his boogers. Lena was feeling less inclined to cut, depsite the bird's nest and boogers, especially during the humid days when his hair would curl slightly around his ears and at the base of his neck (Luke and Jaz both have bone straight hair, so any hint of a curl on Zeben's head has been enough to make us squeal with glee). How could we cut off his curls? So we resolved to wait until his second birthday, when the humidity (and "curls") would be gone, and when he'd really be a toddler.

But then, this morning, after freeing his hair from his clogged up nose for the upteenth time, I said, "maybe we should cut it right now." And Lena said, "really?" And Zeben said, "Yeah! Haircut now!" We're a month and two days shy of our planned haircut date, but we decided to listen to the baby anyway. We brought Zeb outside with the haircut stool and I snipped away for all of 4 minutes. We saved some of the snippings in an envelope so that we can peek in at them later, and cry, and wish we'd let his hair grow forever.

Zeben is thrilled with his new look. Lena and I feel relatively pleased, with a little bit of sadness mixed in. It really seemed like I was cutting away the last of his babyhood. I can't believe how much older he looks with just a little less hair. And the really shocking part is how much he looks like his big brothers (especially how much he looks like the toddler versions of them (they, of course, had the same haircut, since it's the only haircut I know how to do)). When Jaz saw him, he said, "he looks like Lukas! And a little bit like ME!" And it's rather odd how much he does.

Our good camera is out of batteries (and the charger was temporarily misplaced), so I took these photos with our old regular digital camera. I can't believe how much worse the quality is (and it was so annoying to have to deal with the digital delay!). If anyone out there in the blogosphere hasn't yet made the switch to an SLR camera--do it! The difference is amazing.

What a big, big kid.