I dug through the archives for you all in order to properly share this story.
It's a story of milk chocolate curls that met a rather unfortunate fate. We'll begin with cuteness overload, one of my most favorite pictures. Ever.
There she is. My big girl. Three years old in a tie dyed tank top and her favorite corduroy overalls. (pretending to have lost her arms, oh my!) And there are the curls that bounced on her head as she toddled through those early years. I used to put them in high pig tails on the top of her head. Two curly ringlets stuck off each side. Ohhhh, those days. They seem so long ago and like yesterday all rolled into one.
Last week I read this very funny piece over on mamalode. It made me laugh out loud and remember a similar (though slightly less traumatic) story from my past.
One evening while very pregnant with baby number three, I went through the typical bath and pajama bedtime routine with my young two. I had trimmed the ends of Jade's hair and left the scissors on top of the toilet while busying myself with the usual hubbub of getting two little ones ready for bed. As Sam & I picked out stories and loaded a pile of books on to the bed for reading, Jade wandered away from us. I hear her say from the bathroom something like "I do it, I cut."
I ran into the bathroom to see what she had cut. And there, in a pile on the floor were the milk chocolate curls. The scissors had cut through a huge chunk of her damp hair with ease. She was so proud of herself, that girl. Beaming with giant scissors in hand. And me, in all my pregnant hormones and young mama ways.... I burst into tears. "Oh no," I said scooping up the curls as if I might be able to somehow put them back on. I surveyed the damage.... no bleeding... two ears... thank goodness. On the floor however, were most of the curls that once hung from the back of her beautiful hair. She looked at me concerned, no doubt surprised by my emotional response.
I managed to collect myself enough to clean up. Hide the damn scissors. Curse quietly at myself for leaving them out in the first place. And then read the pile of books to the kids.
After the kids were settled I called Joe on the phone. Literally sobbing about the hair cut. He was at a friend's house working on his old VW bus.... and imagine this? He too was surprised by my reaction. He laughed and came home early. "It's just hair," he told me.
Can I please blame most of that ridiculous display on 7+ month pregnant mama hormones? I mean sheesh, that was not one of my prouder moments.
But you know, a piece of it was knowing those baby curls would be gone once they were snipped off. As if my baby girl was suddenly not such a baby. And they were.
She didn't miss them one bit though, that girl. And luckily the top hair mostly covered the missing chunk and we were able to pull off a bob style cut. The years went on. And the girl grew up. And then somehow those long ago curls came back in the form of lovely wild waves.
But she was tired of combing them and taming them and she started hinting that she'd really like to cut them all off. (again)
And so she did. Nearly twelve inches. (yes, she donated it)
And much like everything with kids, when you think it's no big deal and you're truly quite prepared. They suprise you. I think she grew a foot when they snipped off that hair. In the matter of minutes she went from looking like a big kid to a very sophistocated young lady. This time catching her dad much more by surprise than her mama.
"It's just hair," I told him with a smile. But somehow it seemed like so much more.
