Want to make me bawl like a baby?  Hurt my family.  Make fun of a kid.  Tell me a sad story of heartache.

Or apparently, give my daughter a haircut.

That’s right, folks. We did it. We took our girl for her first ever hair cut.

She was born with a full mop…

and we’ve let it grow…

and grow…

   

and grow…

   

and GROW!

   

Until it was so long, that she was in danger of Auntie Ko-Ko putting her hair in a bun.

~ Side-story: My little sis, Kylie, once had hair as long as Annalise when she was young. She liked it in a bun for bath-time. One night, she forgot to have someone pin it up and was about to step in the tub when she remembered. Running into the living room buck naked, she asked someone to put her hair in a bun. My older sis, Korie (11 1/2 years Kylie’s senior) volunteered. As Kylie backed her little naked body up to Korie, Korie grabbed her hair and stuck it right between Kylie’s butt-cheeks and said, “There. It’s in a bun.” Kylie didn’t find it funny. Korie found it hilarious.

Korie may live in Indonesia, but I still think it’s best to avoid bun-length hair. ~

For Leesie, as it is for all of us, some hair days were better than others…

   
So with her hair approaching “bun length” and with more frequent bad hair days recently, we thought it might be time to get it chopped.

I probably should have taken her in when she told Auntie Nee that her hair falls in her potty when she goes. (I don’t really think it did.)

Or maybe I should have scheduled the appointment 4 months ago after the Target fiasco. Long story short: Me, 2 kids, 1 dirty public restroom, 1 full cart of yet-to-be-purchased household necessities left in the clothing section as I run with said 2 kids to the potty for an “emergency” and end up with 1 girl’s long hair in the toilet as she bent down to pull her pants back up. I saw it coming. I hollered. Then gagged as she pulled wet hair back out. It could have been prevented if I had a free hand. But I happened to be busy frantically putting Jacob on my shoulders to stop him from reaching in the little secret garbage box in the stall, then frantically pulling him back down and covering his mouth after he tried to look over the stall at the nice lady next door. “Peek! I see you!”

In any case, I postponed the haircut because I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. Those baby curls at the bottom of her long beautiful hair would be gone. They’ve been there 4 years, 4 months, and 17 days. No – even longer, since her hair was growing well before she was born.

So today, when we decided to finally do it, I was nervous. She was nervous. She couldn’t eat breakfast because her “tummy felt funny.” I couldn’t eat breakfast because I was crying. She brought bear-bear to hold. I just held tissues.

  

“How much do you want cut?” the hairdresser asked.

Not much. Baby steps. I don’t want her to grow up. I’m not ready for this. “Oh, just an inch or two. We still want it long.”

  

Matt says it doesn’t look much different. I am happy about that. Maybe next time we can go shorter. Or not. We’ll see. For now, I’m just trying to figure out how to survive her growing up when I couldn’t even keep it together at the hair salon.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did keep one lock of baby curls. I’ll have to keep them in her baby book. She certainly isn’t a baby anymore. I love you, my big girl!