Adventures in Hairstyling

Ryan and I often wondered what our babies would look like while they were in utero, but if there was one thing we were certain of, we knew they would have extremely thick hair as both of us have LOTS of it ourselves (Ryan’s stick straight, mine wavy).  And were we right – our daughter Alexandra has beautiful, thick, curly hair, and Grayson seems to have quite a bit already as an infant. 

See what I mean?!  The child’s hair has grown SO much in the past several months.  I noticed while she was in the tub the other night that, when it is wet, her hair goes all the way down her back and is getting dangerously close to Crystal Gayle territory, which means my girl needs a trim!  

Side note – please tell me ya’ll know who Crystal Gayle is?

Country singer who was fairly big in the seventies and eighties…younger sister of Loretta Lynn…and perhaps most famous for her floor-skimming hair, undoubtedly full of split ends.

Here’s hoping I didn’t lose you on that tangent!

Anyway, as I was saying …

While Alexandra’s curls are beautiful, the downside is that her hair is prone to become tangled – A LOT.  Just looking at it causes it to get tangled, and don’t even get me started about how terribly tangled it is after she has eaten something sticky and multiple strands of hair get caught in the stickiness!  Combing it out is no treat for her mommy (payback, I suppose, for the grief I’m sure my sister and I gave my mom as she combed out our own thick wavy hair).  I find it easiest to arm myself with a huge bottle of detangler and comb, then sit her down in front of a Sesame Street video on the computer, where her attention is diverted from what I’m doing. 

Most mornings I simply pull back her hair with a hair bow, as seen in the picture above.  Some mornings she will sit still long enough for me to do “ponies”, but those days are few and far between.  On occasion, she comes home from pre-school and her hair is styled completely differently.  In her last class, one of her teachers could craft the most beautiful French braids – boy, do I miss her!  Not sure why Alexandra would sit still for her hair to be braided, maybe because the other little girls were doing it, too?  (Oh boy, peer pressure hits already!). 

However, sometimes the results of her teachers’ hairstyling efforts are a little suspect, like one day last week.  Ryan came in with Alexandra and said, “Just wait till you see her hair.”  Alexandra ran up to see me with a huge smile on her face and what appeared to be two adorable ponytails with a perfect part right down the middle. 

I was confused, and asked Ryan why he would question this as her hair looked adorable, remarking that I couldn’t believe her teacher got such a straight and even part.  That is when Ryan turned her around and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. 

Yep, that’s a THIRD ponytail in the back of the head – or what Ryan and I have affectionately begun calling the “MULLET PONYTAIL.”  To make it even more interesting, the hair bow I had put in her hair that morning was strategically placed right on top of that third mullet ponytail (Ryan removed it before I could photograph it, unfortunately). 

Isn’t that a hoot?  I’m not sure WHY the teacher didn’t just part Alexandra’s hair into two ponies instead of three, especially when she was able to part Alexandra’s hair on the top so easily. 

All I could hope was that none of the mommies I knew saw Ryan that afternoon when he picked up Alexandra from pre-school, as I’m sure they were calling into question my hairstyling skills!!!