FIrst haircut, Santa, and THIS

First, we'll start with this.

Looks like we'll stick with the zip-up pajamas from now on.

In less stinky news, Sam got a haircut today at the PX and we planned on visiting with Santa right afterwards since we are idiots and seem to enjoy torturing our son.
We started out waiting at the regular barber shop for a haircut, but the lines were long (ODD for a Monday at 1pm... ??). So I ran down to the "beauty salon" and asked if they did baby haircuts there because this salon had doors on it and I figured there might be some screaming taking place during this traumatic event.
Trust me, I was under no impression that this was going to be a happy, let's-do-this-every-week occasion. I clipped the child's nails this morning for goodness sake, and he reacted about as well as if he was having bamboo shoots shoved up under his fingernails. He just isn't real good with sitting still and behaving for longer than 0.05 seconds (which is why the upcoming Christmas flights are STRESSING ME THE HELL OUT).

So he sits down with Steve and I was already picturing how the poor stylist was going to lop off an ear or two while trying to trim the hair around his ears (because that was really the only hair that needed trimming). But she was a PRO and deserved a $100 tip if we're being fair and honest. Steve and I swapped places about 2 minutes in, because he kept reaching for me and I thought MAYBE he might calm down a little bit if he sat on me. But no.

After his hair was trimmed and the waterworks stopped, we collected a little sample of baby hair and I might remember to glue it into his baby book one of these days.
And since we are glutton for punishment, we went right down the hall to see SANTA.

Sam has no clue who this man is or what he represents, but he sure doesn't like him. He kept staring at his beard (he has a thing about beards) and not looking too sure about what was coming up. I handed him off as soon as the lady was ready to snap the picture and the wailing commenced once again.

Classic.