The price of beauty

It has taken me three daughters, but I have finally surrendered to the overwhelming motherly instinct to dress up little girls like frilly little dolls. I never used to bother much with hair bows or flowers, especially since Grace didn’t have hair until well past age 1 and screamed bloody murder whenever I approached her head with a comb or brush. Claire always had lots of hair and has the highest pain tolerance I’ve ever witnessed on a child. She succumbed fairly readily to my attempts at primping, though her tomboy tendencies and high activity level made overalls my go to outfit of choice for her. But for some reason, on my third daughter, I have become enamored of the big hair flowers and bows. Part of my hesitation with Grace, was that I temporarily succumbed to all the popular wisdom that says children should be allowed to like what they like independent of their gender. I even went so far with Grace to insist that anytime someone called her pretty, they also call her smart (and she is, most certainly, both. But I don’t know about you, but, shallow as I am, I’d always rather be called pretty than smart. What was I thinking?) But, two very memorable trips through the princess phase (Grace would ONLY wear pink for an entire year) has completely won me over to its charms---girls will be girls, end of story. (And I once read that if the daughter is the princess, that makes the mom the queen! I can definitely handle that, although I doubt that writer ever met my baby queen for whom I will always be a lowly, occasionally annoying and usually incompetent, servant). When we were at Disneyworld in February I bought myself a coffee mug that said “Once a princess always a princess,” because I can be a girly girl deep down, too. (For Chad I bought a mug with the picture of “Grumpy” dwarf on it that said, “Beneath this grumpy exterior beats the heart of a dashing hero” I digress, but I still love that for him).

But, back to my story. True to her nature, ever since Lucy has figured out how her hands work, she has diligently pulled every hair bow and ponytail out within minutes of my wrestling it onto her adorable dark head. After her baths at night, when I comb her hair, she generally sits calmly while I comb it out, then looks right at me with a defiant twinkle in her eye, and deliberately rubs her hand across her head to muss it. Stinker. See, here’s another thing I’ve learned. The princess phase sets in much, much later. Tiny girls (say, the queen’s age) HATE dresses and frills and bows. There is a brief window after they are first born and before they turn mobile during which the queen mother might attempt to indulge her appetite for princess pink and lace. But at around 9 months until about 2 ½, girls have no interest in looking pretty or playing dress up. They want to be moving and, preferably, messy. Stuff on the head is just an annoyance and dresses slow a girl way, way down.

So, as happens in every little girl’s life (at least in every one of my little girls), it came time for bangs. Lucy’s hair had gotten long enough to interfere with her vision, and she absolutely refuses to leave a barrette or rubber band within 5 feet of her head. Enter Grandma Marilyn. Marilyn has done all of our haircuts from my first through the first of my firstborn, to now, the first of my last born. Some have been more memorable than others (Gracie cried so hard and refused to visit Grandma Marilyn afterward to the point where both Marilyn and I nearly gave up and let her grow shaggy and unkempt. But, like a true daughter of mine, ice cream was a great soother and negotiating strategy. Claire’s was uneventful except we all were a bit taken aback by just how BLUE her pretty eyes looked when we could see them again.)
I will let the pictures tell the queen’s story. She was not happy to be getting bangs, though she was distracted by perusing through a hair style magazine.

Eventually, she selected a style (midway through the haircut):

In general, she was not happy with us:

And I know the final picture is supposed to be an adorable, smiling, coiffed little princess. But this is the queen we are talking about (and, in fairness to her royal highness, she has been battling a bug for the last few days, so her general outlook on life has been especially sour the last few days). But you can see her cuteness in spite of her crabbiness, can't you?