The Hair Diaries

Ever since Carley was a baby, then a toddler, then a preschooler, and until now, we (family and friends) have shared sympathetic little grins and made harmless jokes about the baby girl with no hair. She was born with lots of BLACK hair. Then that began to fall out and she had a DRAMATIC, squeaky clean bald spot on the back of her head from about 2-6 months. After that, it was coming in blonde...but barely.

It was never an issue for me, really. I didn't really fuss over her hair. I just wanted her to be comfortable, so no crazy bows or embellishments. Maybe a tiny clip from time to time. We were pretty simple.

When she was a toddler, her hair was SO fine and she slept SO hard, that it was literally a nest in the back when she woke up. If I combed it out, it was crinkled like french fries, and all frizzy. It was quite amazing, actually.

It wasn't really until preschool or so, when we started REALLY realizing that other little girls Carley's age had hair. LOTS and lots of hair. Gorgeous, flowing locks of hair with beautiful bows and headbands. They were there to look beautiful AND to serve a purpose because those little girls NEEDED things in their hair because they HAD hair! :) Still, never really an issue for me. Carley's always just been Carley. Bald head and all! The first day we EVER got her hair into any sort of a ponytail, I think I emailed EVERYONE we knew with a picture! I hadn't accessed this list since birth announcements, but this was a worthy occasion.

However, about a year and a half ago Carley started really noticing hair. Making comments often about her hair and asking when she would have hair that was long like mine. I could tell she was sad, but we would talk about how if all of the other little girls had long hair, she was special because her hair was short. But it was hard convincing her of this when every one of the Disney princesses had long locks (except for Snow White-she was representing for the short hair)... Carley could really rock the sprouty pigtail look- which i LOVED- but she wanted more.

Well, her tune has changed lately. Although it's not near as long as other little girls her age (two friends in particular, Ada and Ava have long GORGEOUS hair who've probably had it cut 19 times by now!), she is pretty impressed with herself. It makes me want to get a little teary when I can tell that she's flipping her head from side to side because she can feel her hair touching her shoulders and her back and it's taken FOUR YEARS!!!!! She says daily, "Mommy, look how long my hair is now. It reaches down to here!!!" I am so excited for her. I still love her short hair, and she wouldn't be Carley without it, but...let's face it...hair IS important to girls!

And Carley's hair moment has been a long time comin'.... :)