I've been trying to convince Larkin to cut her hair for years. In fact, I had pretty much given up trying to convince Larkin to cut her hair and had resigned myself to a lifetime of supporting her braiding and detangling habits. A few days ago, in a brisk wind, I randomly waxed nostalgic for having hair short enough that it wouldn't get in my eyes in the wind. Today, she needed to go get a hair cut. Right now.
Lest ye have forgotten the magnitude of hair of which we speak:
That's a lot of hair. The hair cutter (barber? barberess? salon lady? stylist?) was Fantastic. She didn't seem overly despondent that Larkin was cutting her hair, talked directly to Larkin rather than to me, checked in before doing anything irreversible, and was happy to take the extra time and steps necessary for us to save the hair for donation. After some on-line research, we chose to send the hair to
Wigs For Kids, but it hasn't been mailed yet so if you know something we don't about hair donation, please let me know!
First step, separating the hair into quadrants and gathering the sections:
Then the moment after which there was no going back:
Somehow the tails left on the chair were a little sad. These are the first two:
I'm pretty sure Larkin grinned the whole time and never had a second thought. Boy does this kid embrace life experiences.
She had almost two feet of length taken off, total. The end result:
And one from the side for full appreciation:
She *loves* it. And can't stay away from reflective surfaces. And chattered all the way home about how she couldn't believe anyone would want to have long straight hair. And used it as an excuse to talk Emile into taking her swimming as soon as we got home ("It'll be like a celebration... and I want to know what it's like to swim without a long braid!")
I totally expected some anguish, second thoughts, moments of regret, maybe even a few tears. Heck, I wasn't even sure we were actually going to leave the haircut shop with more than a trim. I guess this just proves (again) that I shouldn't project potential angst onto this kid who seems pretty certain the world is all rainbows and unicorns.
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