September 29, 2008

The difference two years makes...


I hope that all of you know how proud i am of our JadyBug. She is smart, sweet, a great big sister, strong, athletic, graceful, funny, loving and a blast to be around. But, she isn't always as great as that sentence may lead you to believe. Two years ago tonight was one of those times...

It was my quarter end and it had been a semi-stressful day. We weren't to the point that we were doing a lot of business yet, so I was able to go home at a decent hour. I got home and Jade didn't want to go to bed. She wanted to watch "Herbie Fully Loaded" and we didn't. So we let her curl up in our bed and watch it. She had been coming to check in with us every so often. We noticed that it had been a little while since we had heard from her. We thought that she must have gone to sleep. We didn't go check on her.
Several minutes went by and we still didn't check on her. Certain she must be asleep.

Soon, she comes bouncing out of our room. "Look, Mommy, look what I did to my hair!" In the night light silhouetted, I thought, "What on earth did you put in your hair that got it so slicked back?" I reach out to touch it, expecting wet and gooey. Instead, I feel a buzz cut! I scream, I start to cry, I send her over to the couch where Scott is sitting.
While I go and look in the bathroom, Scott calls my parents to come over and be a voice of reason. In the bathroom, I find the scissors put away and the hair, little 1 inch long strands, gathered up and put in the trash. At least she tidied up after herself!

My parents got there just as we were about to shave her head. My mom said that we just couldn't do that to her. It would be too traumatic. So, we cleaned up the edges and got rid of a few longer chunks on the top.

Here is how our little blond beauty looked, two years ago today.

And how she looked two years ago, tonight...


Yes, she cut all the way back and all the way down each side. Every family has at least one child that cuts their hair. Never have I known one to cut her own hair to such a length. I told her when she did it that she would be in kindergarten before we were able to cut it up to a bob. Guess what? She's in kindergarten and it is just barely long enough to do a little bob. She doesn't want one, so we just tapered it and tried to blend it a little, while keeping her length.

The saddest part of the story was the next morning. Jade came running into our room and said, crying, "Mommy, my hair! It didn't grow back!"

That winter she wore a lot of really cute skull caps. She still got to look like an adorable little blond girl with her long hair hanging out the back. But, boy am I glad it's long enough now we can pull it back any way we want and the front doesn't require a handful of bobby pins.

Here are the emails that I sent out, with pictures to let our family members know what had happened at our home that night...

First email was titled "6 Things we take for granted-"


6. seedless watermelon

5. Costco

4. running water

3. debit cards

2. DVR/ TIVO

and finally...

1. Hair on the top of your three year old daughter's head.

The follow up email the next morning was titled, "Now for the explanation... "


Important lessons that mom and dad learned last night.

1. When you send a 3 year old into your bedroom to watch Herbie and she quits coming out wanting juice, chocolate milk cuddles or just to say hi, DO NOT assume she is just liking the movie or asleep.


2. When she tells you her hair is in her face and its bugging her, HIDE THE SCISSORS

3. Anytime a 3 year old is quiet assume the worst


4. When your 3 year old comes out with presumably slicked back hair, be very wary of what she's really been doing.


5. 3 year old do not understand the ramifications of cutting their hair to the scalp. It won't grow back in a day.


6. Little girls don't want to look like their dads but do want to look like their baby sister.



Now that we have moved past this experience, I can honestly laugh about it. And can say, Jade did not learn her lesson after that haircut. About a year later (August 2007) , she cut Ivy's hair.

She's learned her lesson.

4 comments:

Vanessa said...

Savanna did the same thing when she was three and worked on Emmy at the same time. Savanna got a bob and Emmy had to have a pixie cut. This all while I though they were eating dinner on the deck. I heard Emmy say, "My dinner is ruined!" I walked outside to find hair all over the place.

Lorelie Andrus said...

Your little blonde beauty looks much prettier without a buzz or the mullet that followed! It really has taken a long time to recover from this "incident". It's a good thing her sparkling personality and smile remained through it all!

Its So Very Cheri said...

Oh my Lands.
My son was telling her today how beautiful she is and she said NO I'm NOT. I told her she was beautiful even with the Mullet. I looked at her and said WHO cut your hair. She put her little finger up to her cheek, began tapping her check and said Hmmmmm I'm thinking I'm thinking. she rolled those little eyes up and then looked at me and said Jesus cut my hair.

Maggie said...

My mouth is hanging open - I think I would have cried a thousand tears.

My daughter let our neighbor cut gum out of the back of her hair and now has a 1" chunk of hair that is about 1" long in the back... and I thought THAT was horrifying.

Wow. I'm speechless.