Ruth: A Hair Story

Looking at the sister pictures I took, I couldn't help thinking how 'grown-up' Ruth's hair looked. I literally can't get over it. For those anyone else who taken their daughter to the playground and commented on the delightfully long hair of other people's little girls--"She's so cute. Wow, hair halfway down her back. What, is she five?" "No, she just turned three."--this post if for you.

This is Ruth when she was born. For someone who was 'born bald' (I wasn't technically bald, I was blond, but apparently blond baby hair is invisible to the naked eye), I was thrilled to discover our first baby had hair! Lovely browish hair. This was a good sign.

This is Ruth at around 6-7 months. Great! Very fuzzy. Very cute. We're making progress. This is good.

Ruth at about 10 months. You cold almost say she has bangs. Keep it up!

Ruth at 1. Very cute wispy hair. And you haven't been able to see her scalp for months! Okay, she must be definitely ahead of the curve, hair-wise.

Now she's approaching two and something very fun occurs. Her hair turns blond in the sun. Wow! What a fun surprise. We'll see if it stays this way.

Here is Ruth, now two or very close to it, and something ominous is appearing. After an entire of year of growth, her hair has gotten thicker, but there is virtually no length change whatsoever. I invite you to compare this photo to ten-months. Same adorable Ruth, one year older, somewhat blonder, but only a negligible amount of hair length to show for it.

Here is Ruth at about 2 1/2. On a good day, she has a few strands that pull away from her head. That's kind of exciting. And wow, she may even need a hair cut. That could be fun. Little did I know when I took this picture that disaster was about to strike.

These are the results of Ruth's first 'non-approved' hair cut. She's approaching three. We're about to go the beach and see a bunch of relatives we don't get to see very often, and Ruth, though still very adorable, looks like we possibly picked her up from an orphanage in the Eastern Block. We subsequently threw out every pair of scissors we owned.

I think this is the very day she cut it. She was quite thrilled with things, I think.

A few more weeks down the road and now we're getting more wispy strands below her ears, which creates an interesting mullet effect when combined with her previous handiwork. Very blond overtones in the summer, you can see. Now I get what we're all trying to copy when we have highlights done.

Now she's three, it's been a few months, and her bangs can pass as bangs again. Still, those little wisps of hair behind her ears refuse to get thicker or longer, and they just dangle there, taunting me. We're considering Miracle Grow at this point.

Finally I kiss those wispies good bye and they end up in the trash along with the remains of this bob cut I finally settled on, having finally given up on the dream that they would ever become anything more than the remnants of baby hair they probably were. I settle on something shorter, thicker, and more unified.

This is January of this year. When I used to cut Ruth's hair, I had to arbitrarily decide what would be bangs and what would be 'full-lenth hair' (if it ever grew). Now you can actually begin to tell with confidence which pieces are not in the bang category, and the non-bangs have actually begun to hang to the side of her face rather than dangling in her eyes where they don't belong. And her bottom layer (all of it) has actually reached her chin! If you comb it out, that is.

This is Ruth today. She has princess hair! Albeit still on the short side, it is so pretty. It's the kind of hair I always wished I had growing up. Blond, mostly straight, then curling at the end. Princess hair. Hmmm, maybe I should try combing it and singing that Rapunzel song to see if it makes me young forever. That would be cool. It would almost make up for all the time spent worrying if it was ever going to become full, girl-length hair before she graduated high school.

We love our little Ruth. That she has princess hair is probably merely an extension of her innate personality. She is very much a princess.