Hair We Go Again

"She's got such pretty hair. Does it just flip up like that?" Receptionist @ the gym

"We all love her hair. It's great." Girls @ gym daycare

"Love the stylish hair." Mom @ KinderGym

"Her hair is amazing." Stacy @ Capital Speech and Learning

Above is what I imagined M's hair would look like. Dark and thick like her dad's; curly like her mom's.

Instead she got just the opposite: Thin and straight ~ and sticking straight up!

I've written quite a bit on this topic, I know. I also know that Salma must get tons of compliments on her coif, but the ones above weren't intended for her, they're for my M, all in a 24-hour period. I shamelessly kept count, yes. I was starting to get used to it, frankly. D once mentioned that he too was bombarded with similar compliments/inquiries when he was out with M, but when he told me that upon entering the play area at the gym he had found M sitting on the lap of a different girl than the aforementioned while she played with her hair, I just knew I had to write about it one more time.

Even in those early days I would hear comments about her "cool hair," and I have to say that most seemed to be genuine. I suppose if ever hair that looks like that is going to be "cool" it's going to be when it's sitting atop a baby's head.

At about six months she got the first compliment on her "haircut," which wasn't a haircut at all. It looked something like this:

Yeah, I don't know either. It was a bald-in-the-back version of Kate Goselin's hair. And luckily for all those involved, I didn't think about putting up a picture until now that it's too late. You're welcome.



Here's her wig at about 10 months:



And the back:
Things were looking up. By her first birthday she had had her first bang cut and it was adorable.


And then it just grew! She went from pixie to long in no time. That's when the "flip" came into play. Until it grew so much and got so heavy that it was gone.


We went through trims, mostly to the bangs ~ even tried the Katy Perry look (don't have a picture of her either), but two weeks ago we went in and got her first real haircut. I was so scared we'd ruin that beautiful mane. I was so nervous that the flip was gone forever and that the scissors would not only nip the section where it used to be, but the little bit of baby left in her as well.


A few minutes in the "Bobby Ca" and this is what appeared:


Let me just say now that I think those little pig-tail things they do at Jack & Jill's are hideous. Something about the part being so perfect ~ it reminds me of Alfalfa from the Little Rascals (Oh, how I wish I had a picture of him). But this is coming from the person whose had the same haircut or some slight variation of it for the last 20 years, so I don't necessarily think I'm a qualified authority on hair. All of that aside, however, I wasn't sold.

Until the next day when the thingys came out and her hair flowed freely. It was a little more blunt than what I wanted, but I loved the way it fell on her shoulders. And the flip is back!

We went to the gym that day. The reviews are in: The younger set is taking notice now too, and they approve. I was informed that some of the other little girls were swooning over her new do. Mia, well she was thrilled!

She may not have the Salma-do I once envisioned, but I don't think she'll have any complaints about the one she does have.

W&WWW Weekend Edition

That would be Wild & Wacky Washington Weather to you.

At 6:37 Friday morning the Oly School District called to inform us that, once again, school would be closed due to inclement weather. Wonderful! That first day was great, even welcome. Day 2 might not go as well.

The food supply was low, as was my patience. The sky was clear, and the snow was slushy. For the second day in row they built forts, ate homemade waffles, and then headed outside.

The boys had fun playing some crazy monster game in the woods while the girls enjoyed being pulled around on the sled.

Despite the sunshine peeking through, it was freezing! Below freezing to be exact. That made for a very slippery sheet of ice on my driveway:

That mound of ugliness, that's my knee. Did I mention it was slippery? Ouch!


Luckily, not all bad comes from slippery. A slippery driveway means a slippery street upon which to sled:



That's J in front of our house. I love hearing his excitement as he's going down that hill. I didn't realize it was that steep; although, seeing my then-three year old on his bike shooting down there at full speed and crash into the railing because he didn't know how to apply his brakes should have clued me in. Welcome to the neighborhood!

Okay. I got sidetracked. That's a story for another day.

By the time 4:30 came around, M and I had been stuck in Woodtrails since Tuesday. That's three-and-a-half-plus days, People! We met Daddy at the mall. I went to get a haircut while he and the kiddos went to Chuck E Cheese, then we all met up and had Thai food for dinner.

That was all I wrote for the rest of the weekend. I didn't step outside again until yesterday morning. I organized, I scraped, I loved it. D went to the gym and the grocery store both days. And the kids, they joined him on his gym outings. Other than that, we were pretty much all hermits.

We had two movies nights ~ one family and one adult (not that adult), ate good food, watched the Oscars, J played way too much Wii. We even got a game of Monopoly Junior in.

As any person living in the Northwest will tell you, a little rain ~ okay, a lot of rain ~ a whole lot of rain ~ isn't going to stop the earth's rotation -- or a kid's soccer game, for that matter. We may grunt and complain, but we'll slip on our rain boots and go with it. And when summer decides to finally make an appearance, we'll go even faster ~ sans the rain boots, of course ~ Because before we know it, the rain will come back to overstay its welcome once again.

Sometimes a late-winter snowfall, though it may not stop the earth's rotation either, puts a wonderfully unexpected stop to our routine. And a smile on our face.

(And a video on the blog? Maybe! First time I've been able to load one. And not for lackof trying. Enjoy!)