Ella's New Hair

For a couple of months now, Ella has been talking about getting her hair cut to shoulder length. She even picked this picture out of a magazine. I took a picture of it, mostly to appease her, and so that we'd have it in case we decided to get her hair cut.

This is the hair Ella wanted.

Dave and I talked about it and decided we weren't ready to get her hair cut yet. (Yes, we seem to have an issue with cutting our children's hair.) I talked to Ella about it and told her I wasn't ready yet and that if we cut it, we couldn't do the fun things with it that she likes to do - like pigtail balls and braids. She was okay with that but she kept talking about it anyway.

Meanwhile, I kept happening accross the picture in my phone and it struck me how very perfect the cut would be for Ella's hair. It amazes me sometimes how well the child knows herself. A couple of months passed and I started feeling okay with the haircut idea. I know all that hair is hot for soccer and gymnastics. We spend a lot of time untangling it, even with conditioner and detangling spray. I started thinking that maybe we should just let her get it cut.

Saturday morning while we were watching them play, the topic came up again when I commented that it was time for her to have a trim. I showed Dave the haircut she wanted again. He was okay with it, too, so he asked if she wanted to get it cut. Of course she did!

Her hair was past her arm pits when it was dry and about halfway down her back when wet. It varies from straight and full to ringlets, depending on the weather. This day, it was somewhere in between the two.

Before the haircut.

The lady cut about four inches off and layered it. She was quite impressed with the haircut Ella picked out.


This picture doesn't do justice to the amount of curl she has.

Despite the expression in this picture, she absolutely loves it. In addition to this being her first real haircut, it was also the first time she got really irritated at me for acting like a complete Mom and taking too many pictures. That's what you see on her sweet face. Irritation.

She was so over me taking pictures at this point.

With the weight off, her hair is even curlier now than it was before. It's spunky and sassy and it fits her perfectly. It was fun to watch her relish it all weekend. A few times I caught her lifting her face to the wind savoring the way her hair blew off her neck. She was excited to have her "new hair" washed the first time and it's been so easy to brush.

We got two important life lessons out of it.
1. On the way into church Sunday morning, neither of the men who were standing outside to greet us commented on it. As we walked to her class, she said, "They didn't understand about my new hair." I reassured her, "It's okay, most of the time boys just don't recognize when you have new hair."

2. While I cuddled her in bed Saturday night, I told her that I thought she picked out a great haircut that was perfect for her kind of hair. She said, "But I still don't have the eyes." I asked what she meant. "The eyes like the lady in the picture." I told her it didn't matter that she didn't have the lady's eyes because she has her own - the eyes God gave her that make her special. It fit perfectly with her Bible verse from last week.

"I am wonderfully made."  - Psalm 139:14