Hair of Many Colors

My youngest daughter was blessed with the most glorious, thick, golden ringlets - you know- the kind of hair every woman dreams of having. I spent years nurturing and caring for her beautiful hair. Unfortunately, children get older, and somewhere along the way....for a period of time...their brains seem to get smaller. As their brain constricts, suddenly our opinions no longer matter. If we say, your dress is nice, they change it. If we say we love their hair...they change it. I have found the best answer is "umpf". It covers everything and does not inspire any sort of drastic rebellion.

My daughter I think got addicted to changing her hair. No simple one time, sneak in the bathroom and chop off a few inches kind of thing for her! We went quickly past that stage right into....color! Color, chop, color again, chop again...it goes and goes and goes more than the Energizer bunny! I am dizzy from trying to keep up.

If someone says "which one is your daughter"...I say "Ummm, the blonde, I mean, no, the brunette, uhhh the redhead...oh hell!" I really do not know anymore! For all I know she will come home or out of the bathroom blue, pink, streaked, bald....spiked, curled, straight???? People say, "Why do you let her?" I don't let her! I do try to help her when she has gone way beyond presentable...like the worst black dye job ever seen with bits of blond still showing in weird patches on the back of her head. I am here to tell you...nothing is worse than trying to remove cheap black dye from your hair. After using every "home remedy" known to women all over - we finally resorted to good old fashioned hair bleach. This of course left her a nice clown orange, which then of course needed covered.

Her brother stands with fascinated anticipation, waiting and waiting for the moment he can point and laugh as her hair falls out in huge clumps. So far, by some miracle, he has not had this satisfaction. We have told her she will go gray early, her hair will fall out, everything you can imagine to dissuade her from the hair color insanity...but nothing works. After all, she seems to come through these multiple changes and still have a head full of beautiful (odd colored) hair. Her hair tip of the day, always wash with shampoo directly after coloring. Who knows, maybe she is onto something.

She is my child with Hair of Many Colors. It would have been so simple (and cheaper!) if she could have settled for something traditional, like maybe a coat of many colors? But no, her hair is something she wears everyday. And as her mood changes daily...so does her hair. It's like a mood ring on her head (maybe I should not have said no when she asked for one of those). I guess I can be thankful no one is yet mass marketing an over the counter skin dye! I might wake up tomorrow and have a Smurf for a daughter!

While others have "Save the Whales" signs on their car, I think I will get me a bumper sticker that says "Save my daughter's hair! Outlaw hair dye!" But will I stop her? Will I force her to quit changing her hair? No. I am a strong believer in freedom of expression through clothing and hair. I think along the road to finding who you are - a person will go through many changes, many fashions, many fads before they stumble on exactly the one which best suits them as a person. If you do not have the freedom to experiment, how will you ever discover your own style?

So I will live with my daughter with the Hair of many Colors. And hope when she grows up, that she has hair (or many wigs) and has learned to appreciate the gifts bestowed on us by nature. Nature is a wonderful artist, but for some reason we always think we can out paint her. Oops, here comes my daughter, I need to quit writing about her. She is blonde today. I think.