Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

LG's mama here.  Given the topic of this post, Matt can claim little expertise so I am taking over for a time.  Matt is knowledgeable on just about any topic- and even if he's not he can fake it with the best of them.  However, hair is not one of those topics. (Insert Matt-is-bald joke and high hat crescendo here.)

I am not much more qualified to discuss appropriate hair styling. When I was little, my mother and I engaged in many a lengthy battle about my hair and the brushing thereof.  She put up a good fight, but I definitely went to school more than once with a head full of knots and who knows what else. Eventually things evened out, but when I took a job where I would be surrounded by animals and children, the messy ponytail took a firm hold.  Currently, I am rocking a Rogue-esque gray streak which I have convinced myself I aesthetically enjoy and is not the result of me being too lazy to get my hair dyed to cover it.

LG's hair has been a source of never ending joy and frustration to both Matt and I.  The old wives tale that predicted that my child would be born with a full head of hair as indicated by my pregnancy heartburn proved to be pretty accurate. More accurate in fact than what most of the doctors predicted about LG.

Her first day home, and already she made the house more fabulous.

Her hair then took a turn for the awkward. We were warned that she could lose some of those flowing locks as she grew.  I assumed it was an all or nothing proposition.  What we really got was a Peter Boyle thing going on.

Picture her tap dancing to "Putting on the Ritz" or yelling at Ray Romano. Your choice.

To cement the ridiculousness of this hairstory, there was also has a horseshoe shaped bald spot on the back of  her head from sleeping in the greatest technological advance in baby-sleeping ever- her Rock 'n' Play Sleeper.  She slept like the proverbial baby, but suffered the indignity of having a reverse receding hairline on the back of her noggin.You can't see it in too many pictures.  Perhaps she was too self conscious about it.

Then things got awesome.

Real awesome.

Baby Fauxhawk. 'Nuff Said.

Morning, noon, and night, her hair was at attention.

While I loved the fact that her hair was always ready for a rockin' party, I was starting to get worried that her hair would continue to grow up and not down. What do you do if that happens?  Invest in Dep gel and spike it like your life depends on it?  Pull a Sinead and shave it down?  Hide it under a Blossom hat? (Why are all my solutions 90s trends?)  I needn't have worried.  Her hair eventually settled into the most adorable pixie do all on its own.  People pay big money for their hair to do what LG's did naturally. 

The pouty cuteness is unbearable in this one.

The next stage in her hair development still gives Matt the shakes. Her hair kept growing- I've been told if you feed kids, these sorts of things are bound to happen. That would be fine, but it got to ragamuffin levels.  (If I'm not in the 1990s, I'm in the 1490s...) She has a wicked cowlick at the back of her head, and all the hair grew at different rates.  It drove me batty.  I can't tell you why strands of hair in her face bugged me so much, but they did.  Up to this point, we had never subjected her to big ol' bows and flowers on her head and only slapped a clip in her hair for special occasions.These sorts of things have just never been on my radar. I am a jeans, t-shirt, no makeup sort of girl.  I only got a grown-up hair stylist at the ripe old age of 29.   But some switch was flipped, and I turned into crazy pageant mom when her hair was messy and in her face. (Though, that is an exaggeration. For the record, I do not endorse tanning, flippers, or hair extensions.) I'm not proud of it. I can pretend it was born of necessity, but really, once I discovered she would willingly let me put in pigtails, ponytails, and more, it was a labor of love.  I loved the bouncy pigtails and messy up-dos.  Her face was just too cute to hide behind a wall of hair. And, when I found G2 was going to be a boy, it reached a fevered pitch. Like I said, she didn't really fight me on it.  I would usually get the whole shebang done before she was finished eating her waffle in the morning.  Yes, I would do her hair while she was strapped in her high chair and very distracted.  Don't judge until you see how cute it looked.

I was particularly proud of the braids.

No harm no foul. Until I had to be at work before she woke up.  In such cases, it became Daddy's job to tame the bedhead.  It was not pretty. I won't go into too many details- mainly because it really works Matt up.  For a man who's attention to detail when folding paper or wrapping a present is headachingly perfect, it was amazing how little hair actually made it into the rubberband when he was at the helm.

Because of this great divide, I finally conceded that she needed a haircut. I had been trimming her bangs for months. She didn't fight me, I only cut them slightly too short once, and her eyeballs are still intact. Matt claimed this was not enough and she needed a "real" haircut. I pushed the main event off until after Christmas because I didn't want it to be "Bad Haircut Christmas" when we looked back at the pictures. That day will come, but I wasn't ready yet.  I was nervous for lots of reasons.  I was afraid she would have one of those little kid mullets you see everywhere. I was scared she would flip out having a stranger come at her with scissors and would end up with half a haircut.  Logically, I know hair grows back.  I have had my fair share of bad haircuts, and haven't really sweated them.  I always shrugged them off and busted out the bobby pins. It was time to put that "logic" to the test.

We settled on Kids Kuts despite its poor spelling skillz because they let the kids sit in a car or on an animal while they get their hair cut. Seems fun, right? Observations from the event:

• Apparently only dads take their sons to haircuts. And, each time the stylist asked the dads what they wanted for their sons, they all shrugged and grunted "A boy haircut."  Apparently this is universally understood by hairdressers.
• Little boys will scream like they are being tortured when they get their hair cut.  
• Toys in the waiting room of a hairdressers skeeve me out only slightly less than the toys at the doctor's office.
•  Matt and I have serious stylist bias.  Independently, we were both silently hoping for the stylist with the nose ring and black hair instead of the one with the dark roots and blond ponytail.  Our wish was granted.
• I think it's weird to keep a lock of hair from a kid's first hair cut.  At the Academy, we have a book of presidential hair.  It's exactly what it sounds like. Visitors love this book of little bundles of hair from people who are long dead.  It weirds me out. I couldn't think of anything else when the stylist asked me if I wanted a lock of hair.

Kids Kuts was a great choice.  She loved sitting on the frog to get her hair cut and as luck would have it, they were showing The Muppets on the big screen in front of her.  She was quiet and patient, and the stylist was perfect.  She got exactly what I was asking for, and didn't waste time trying to butter the kid up.  She got in and out.

Bless you Muppeteers for making our lives just a little easier once again.

And the result was adorable.

The lollipop was just gravy after a ride on the froggie.

I think we'll keep up this style for a while.  I'll miss the pigtails, and I will forever be a little bummed that she got Matt's poker straight hair and none of my wild, wavy hair. Regardless of the state of her locks, she'll always be an amazing kid who's funny, brilliant, charming, loving and beautiful.

Even when her hair looks like this.

BONUS HAIR OUTTAKES!