More about hair

Monday:

Ironically, I slept really poorly in my own bed at home. Partly because I was too hot even with no covers, partly because Tim was snoring a bit, but mostly because I was worried about Jasmine's hair. If you're not, and never have been, an almost-teenage girl this will probably seem silly. But she really didn't want to have it cut, especially not a dramatically short pixie cut. And after hours of trying to detangle it every afternoon and evening last week, I had made little progress on the big matted clump of hair. It had seemed hopeful at first as I combed out the knots around the main tangle, but once I got to that fist-sized lump of felt the progress stopped. I was literally easing out one hair at a time, and often those snapped leaving a damaged frizz that probably wasn't salvageable anyway. Did you know you have approximately 90,000 hairs in your head (100,000 follicles, not all in use at one time)? I calculated it would take me nearly three years at that rate, and that was assuming it wasn't re-tangling each day. Which I think it was.

I lay awake from before 4am worrying and deciding what to do, and then felt sick all day like I was betraying my daughter by making a hairdresser appointment. I didn't tell her until after school because I didn't want to spoil her whole day. Or was it wrong to not give her much time to prepare mentally? We had already discussed the possibility, but hadn't got to the point of that decision. And guess how I dealt with the stress. The same as I always do, with food. I really don't have a handle on this emotional eating business.

Having a dramatic haircut isn't a big deal, I know, I've had them. But it's a big deal to her.

I read recently that when a toddler screams over nothing much as if it's the worst thing that's ever happened to them, it probably IS! Having a toy they want taken away is literally the worst thing that has happened in their short loved lives. I guess I can be grateful that having a short hair cut is one of the worst things that has ever happened to my daughter. Very grateful.

So she was very sad about having to go and probably get her head practically shaved at the back, but we went, and the lovely hairdresser spent an hour working on it (sometimes with a helper) and has asked us to come back for another hour tomorrow, the result of which is that Jasmine will end up with shoulder-length hair instead of (what I expected) a short pixie cut. She cut into the knot a lot so the hair is thinner, and cut off half the length as it was so damaged. But we're both very happy with that. Jasmine is very willing to go through another hour of having her hair pulled if that is the end result. Yay! Sorry for such a long post about my daughter's hair.