From hair to there - Suburban Shalom

For most women, few things are more personal or perplexing than our hair. We spend countless hours {and dollars} combing, cleaning, coloring, cutting, and changing the hair on our head. It may not define us, but it certainly affects our view of ourselves and gives others a way to remember us. For many, a bad hair day is just a bad day.

All of this is why I’m feeling a little in over my ~~head~~ hair these days. There are some things that mothers of daughters deal with that are uniquely challenging. This is one of those things because for us there are no spring/summer buzz cuts. No, there are year-round hair needs.

This is all complicated by the fact that I was born with unruly hair myself.

As the years marched on, that hair went through many interesting seasons. Sometimes short, sometimes very big, sometimes curly, sometimes straight. During one most unfortunate season, it looked something like I had been mildly electrocuted {if you can see beyond the plaid pants}.

{And, let me add that this picture was taken in San Diego, California, where the climate is near perfect. We can’t even blame the hugeness on the humidity! Clearly, I had no true friends during this time in my life. I know this because a true friend would have staged an intervention}.

Even now, some twenty-five years later, I still have no mastery over my own hair. I’ll spare you the photographic evidence, but there are many wedding pictures of my years serving as a bridesmaid that dramatically prove this point.

The bigger issue now, though, is that I have these three girls who were born with hair as unique as their personalities.

The first was nearly bald.

She still had very little hair even at two years old.

And, today her hair is fine and straight and takes approximately forever to dry.

The second one was born with reddish fuzz.

But, by two years old she was more of a bright blonde. {Don’t worry. The baby doll is just having its diaper changed in an unconventional way}.

Today her hair is thick and long and drys in a flash.

The third one was born with brownish straight hair, and was nearly immediately subjected to having it “cut” by some master stylists, ages 3 and 4.

But, then, she turned two and something happened. We’re not sure if she got into some chemicals or if nature just ran its course. But, her hair turned intensely curly.

And, today her hair is just wild. Standard helmets won’t fit over it.

So, the situation is that the girl who had/has hair troubles enough on her own is responsible for maintaining the diverse heads of hair on three other people. And, the oldest two are starting to actually care what I do to theirs. The middle one even made mention of some very fancy braiding she would like performed on hers. I don’t even know if there are enough hours in the day for me to watch the YouTube tutorials necessary to learn those skills.

And, I didn’t even mention the hair issues of this bushy beast.