The Haircut

I lopped Ainsley's hair off today.

Well, not me personally. I left that task to more capable, trained hands. But I made the decision that, since her bangs had finally grown out to her chin, she would join the ranks of other girls sporting bobs.

She was excited about it and couldn't wait to go this morning. She kept checking out her new 'do in the mirror in the car, and it took her 5 minutes to wash her hands when she got home because she couldn't drag her attention away from the mirror.

That one thing made her look so much more grown-up. She was a little baby-face in pigtails yesterday; today, she looks the part of a big kid going off the school.

It took Ainsley so long to get hair. She was a bald little melon-head her first 18 months, and even when she started getting hair it took until age 3 before it first brushed her shoulders. She was still getting mistaken for a boy at 2, even if I had her decked out in pink and purple. When as a toddler she finally got about an inch of good, thick hair, my mom and I immediately began twisting it into teeny-tiny pigtails using teeny-tiny butterfly clips so she would look more like the little princess we knew she was. Since then we've both enjoyed braiding, pony-tailing, and head-banding her hair as it has kept getting longer and longer. In so many ways I hated seeing that precious hair go.

But it was time. Growing out the bangs has made us both nuts, and I was determined one way or the other that she would eventually have hair that is all one-length. And I don't know what that kid does at night, but every morning she emerges from her room looking like Swamp Thing with a tangled, frazzled, twisted bed of seagrass-like hair that takes far too long to detangle and tame. With our new, earlier kindergarten schedule, she needs hair that we can manage quickly at 6am.

Coming on the heels of her kindergarten orientation meeting last night, it was one more heart-wrenching step to the next phase of her childhood. I am less than a week away from putting her on a school bus, and waving goodbye as she goes off on the next journey of her lie. From there, I know it will all start going too fast. Sometimes I want one more day with the little baldie who still said "ma-ma" and "da-da" and who waited every morning to be rescued from her crib, the little baby for whom we were the center of the known universe. Now school will become the center of her world.

When I see her next week wearing her little uniform for the first time, carrying her backpack and a packed lunch, it will be hard to hold back the tears. I will try to be happy for her; I loved school, and some of the friends I met there are still my friends today. She has, I hope, a wonderful road ahead of her.

And a great new haircut to start that road with, and that's always something.