Well, I finally found the right bribe. He asked for a milk shake one day and it just so happened we had just finished talking, once again, about a hair cut. So I offered a milk shake for a hair cut. He agreed.
That was last week, and since then Ainsley has asked if she could get her hair cut too. I told her that yes she could get a trim.
See, I've only had Ainsley's hair cut once. When it finally started to grow and it was very uneven and started getting tangles in these long random strands, I had it cut all one length. That was 2 years ago.
But you have to understand, this is where we came from...
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| Ainsley's First Birthday - pretty much bald. |
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| Ainsley's Second Birthday - There are tiny, itty, bitty pig tails, but you can't tell. |
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| Ainsley's Third Birthday - Hair finally starting to grow |
So you can see why I've been hesitant to cut her hair and not just let it grow. It took years to get here.
And she's always loved her long hair. She likes to compare herself to Rapunzel, and you've gotta have long hair for that.
So yesterday, I was pretty shocked when she asked if she could get her hair cut short. "What do you mean by short," I asked. She pulled her hair back in a pony tail and said she wanted to cut it all off because it gets in her eyes.
I immediately said no, she was just getting a trim. Then she whined. And I thought some more. It's her hair. Why do I get to decide how she wears it. I mean, there's a line. I'm not going to let her walk around in booty shorts and bikini's because she doesn't know any better and it's not appropriate. But her hair is part of her body and she should be able to make decisions about it.
I've done EVERYTHING to my hair. And you know what, it always grows back or out or whatever. Sometimes a girl just needs a change. It doesn't matter if that girl is 35 or 5. Girls like to mix up their looks for whatever reason...to stand out, to fit in, to express themselves, to walk in new shoes for a bit.
So we talked some more, and I made sure that she understood what cutting hair meant. That the hair was gone. That eventually it would grow back but she couldn't all of the sudden decide tomorrow that she wanted long hair again.
She said she understood. And then we discussed the length and I showed her pictures of little girls with shorter hair. She picked one, not quite as short as she had originally talked about.
And voila...
I'm not going to lie. It was hard to watch. I love her long beautiful hair. But I think she looks amazing. Even if she is growing up way too fast.
There's just something about a girl who just got her hair did! She exudes all the confidence in the world. And that is worth 4 or 5 inches of hair.
AND...Look who else got a hair cut...
