Mother-Daughter Haircuts

Kidzilla and I took a trip to the salon for haircuts this afternoon. Finally!  We were both way overdue and it feels great to have a fresh cut and style.

I always love and hate my hair right after a cut. On the one hand, it feels healthy and smooth and what I call “swingy.”  Somehow the stylist always manages to get just the right combination of “stuff,” hair dryer, and brush going to produce a look that – of course – I can never reproduce at home.

On the other hand, though, I always feel a little disappointed in my cut for a few days. My hair does this weird post-haircut thing where it acts like it’s six inches shorter instead of maybe six-tenths of an inch. No matter how I try to style it for about a week, it refuses to cooperate – even to just throw it up in a simple faker bun. I have brat hair.

Zilla got a real big-girl haircut today. Sigh. It’s not that she hasn’t had these before – she has, but maybe just not to this degree. She has an actual haircut – a style complete with face-framing layers and blending rather than a simple even-it-up-so-her-baby-hair-thickens-as-it-grows-in type cut. Sigh.

I don’t remember giving permission for this baby of mine to grow into such a big girl.  It’s happening at such a rapid pace lately, too. It seems like every time I look the other way, she’s catapulted herself farther down the road to growing up. I know there is no way I will catch up to her…but I am sure as hell going to try.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to spending some special time with Zilla and the Fab Hub this weekend. Tomorrow, we finish work and school early and get to kick start the holiday weekend and make some memories.

This holiday feels a little different than it has in other years…our life circumstances are certainly different since Fab Hub’s abrupt change in employment status and Zilla is at that age where she’s experiencing these events and celebrations with a different understanding of what we do and why. No longer just a little baby staring wide-eyed at the sights and sounds, she acutally gets what is happening and that opens up a whole new world for all of us.

I’ve often been kind of a holiday bah-humbug-er. As trite as it sounds, though, I will grudgingly readily admit that the part about how it all changes when you experience it through the eyes of your child is true; it’s a whole new kind of magic. I am actually – and surprisingly – way into the whole holiday scene this year. I even bought a turkey statue to add a little festivity to our home decor. He will arrive after Thanksgiving day, I’m afraid, because, well…I’m me.

When I help Zilla do her hair for school tomorrow morning, I’ll try not to get too teary about how grown-up she looks. Although, her class is participating in a Thanksgiving friendship celebration with the class in the room next to hers – how mature can one really look dressed in a paper bag Pilgrim costume?

But this week as we visit with relatives who haven’t seen us in a while, more than one will comment on how tall our Zilla is and how grown-up her haircut looks and predictably state the painfully obvious: “She’s getting so big!”

And, predictably, we will simply reply, “We know.”