Sasha's hair has been growing. I understand that this is the way of things. Sadly, her hair does not grow at anything like the same speed; there is a three-inch-wide chunk in the back that grows very significantly faster than all of the rest of her hair.
It's been disguised by her curl, but as the difference between the length of the sides and the back of her hair became more and more pronounced, I have had to come to grips with a very difficult reality. My child had grown...
...a mullet.
Finally, over the course of the last week, I resolved to do something about this. Namely, to take the back of her hair and cut it to be of a length with the sides. I did the cut using the "Curly Girl" method, cutting her hair lock by lock and dry. And a good thing, too, because the bottom layer of her hair has a much tighter curl than the top, and when it's all cut evenly while wet, the bottom winds up quite a bit shorter once it's dry. This was a problem I was able to fix (and honestly I cut almost nothing off that bottom layer.)
Much to my surprise, though, I wound up having to chop a good solid four inches off the longest part to get it all even, and I didn't even *tough* the front or sides. Not even a little bit. (She may still have a few stray curls that need trimming, but we had pretty much reached the limit of her sitting-still ability.)
As you might have already guessed, her hair is therefore much shorter now. Hard to get it into a ponytail, even. She looks like an adorable 1920s little flapper child... plus it's so much easier to comb, now, and it is blessedly no longer the dreaded mullet. So we're all good.
In fact, it's so cute that I'm being tempted all over again to cut my own hair. Hmm. If only I had four hours to spare for a nice visit to Carlos. Hmmm.
Scene: A restuarant. Sit-down, on the higher end of moderately priced.
Her: "Mommy, I have to go pee-pee."
Me: "OK, let's go."
(Mother and child go downstairs to the restroom, where child attends to bodily functions. The pair return to their seats. Dinner is served. Three minutes elapse.)
Her: "Mommy, I have to make poopy."
Me: "What?! But... you just WENT potty! Why didn't you go then?"
Her: "I didn't have to go!"
Me: "Well, can you wait?"
Her: "No, I have to hurry."
Me: "But you JUST WENT! You have to wait just a minute so we can eat, OK?"
Her: "NO, MOMMY, I HAVE TO GO QUICK."
Me: "FINE."
(The mother and child return to the potty, albeit with some grumping.)
Epilogue: This would be significantly less agonizing if it weren't predictable in a way one might liken to clockwork. Once is exasperating. Twice is aggravating. At least twice a week for several weeks running, well. There might not be a word for that. At least not one you can use on the Internet in a blog that your own grandmother reads.
Me: "Hey, do you have to go potty?"
Her: "No."
Me: "OK, hang on a minute, I have to go potty."
Her: "NO, I HAVE TO GO POTTY."
Me: "But you just said... ! Look, I'm going potty first."
Her: "NO, I HAVE TO GO FIRST!"
*tantrum ensues*
Me: "Excuse me a minute, I have to go to the bathroom."
Her: "No, *I* have to go potty."
Me: "Well, hang on a minute, because I have to go potty first."
Her: "No, I GO POTTY FIRST."
*tantrum ensues*