Toddler hair dilemma

In our family, the period between one and a half and three years old is a nebulous time for boy hair.  Thing is, we like shaggy hair on little boys that age, but you can't let the hair hang in the eyes too much because the kid has to see.  So we usually just trim the bangs and try to keep the back from looking too mullety.

Eli had great toddler hair. Now Eli's hair is thick and straight, but as a toddler he had this hunky surfer dude thing going on where it was highlighted from the Florida sun and curled at the ends. We just trimmed the bangs area and the back a little bit for a long time and it worked out fine. He didn't get his first real haircut until he was three and a half.

 

Eli at two and a half. 

Can you see why I thought he'd be a shirtless tourguide at some tropical hotel who picked up cougar sugarmamas at the tiki bar?

 

Wolfgang's hair is the waviest of the three boys.  As someone with very straight hair from a family full of straight-haired people, at first I thought he just had a chronic case of bedhead.  Then I realized what we had and celebrated another future candidate for the yearbook's "best hair" prize.  His toddler 'do was pretty close to Eli's.

 

 

Two and a half year old Wolfie during his rock-collecting phase

 



Zebulon, though, his hair has been different.  As a baby he had this awesome weird thing going on where the back half stood straight up.  Observe:

 

 

But then, once it got long enough to weigh itself down, it got super straight, which was fine when it was still long, but has proven extremely dorky to cut.  Here he is last summer shortly before his first home haircut:

 

Way too shaggy but cute, right?  Then here he is, post haircut:

 

 

 

You can buy that as a wig from the Halloween store.  It comes with blackened buck teeth and pre-soiled overalls.  Poor kid, it's not his fault his mom's bathtub haircutting skills didn't work with his hair type!  Of course, hair grows back, and recently Zeb's was getting to eyeball-poking level again.  This time I let my mom do the scissorial honors.  She did do better than I did, but this time it's just a pure bowl cut:

 



So now we've got a dilemma on our hands.  Do we get Zeb his real little boy haircut a year earlier than usual?  Or do we continue inflicting these terrible home haircuts on the poor little guy?  It ends up growing out and looking okay eventually.  I think we'll probably end up taking him to the barber in the spring.  Sigh, I hope he's ready!  I'm sure as long as we keep with the tradition of pacifying him with a soft pretzel he'll be cool. 

Opal's hair is a ways away from styling choices.  Right now she's going through the same baby pattern baldness that the boys went through at that age.  It will be interesting to see what her "real" hair looks like when it grows in.