Cuts Both Ways...

Have you ever had one of those soul-piercing moments as a parent where you are presented with an image so terrifying that you are stuck- mouth agape- frozen in shock and awe, as your mind scrambles to make sense of what it just witnessed? This was exactly my predicament last Thursday night as my irrepressible three-year-old daughter tripped into our living room to tattle on her older brother (or some such tripe and I knew immediately that something 'just wasn't right'. As she turned to leave, I noticed that some of her hair seemed to be falling out- it was dangling off of her shoulder and was just barely clinging to the rest of the hairs on her head.

My baby with her long, beautiful hair! Look, Ma! NO BANGS!

I literally froze thinking 'Dear Jesus!', because my mom has been battling cancer for the better part of the last 2 years- so I know all about hair loss. My mind was struggling to process the question (no matter how morbid): 'Could she have gotten cancer and be losing her hair all in the past 2 hours?!?'  Once the folly of that line of thinking was discarded, I immediately began running through ideas of radiation poisoning: 'Dear God, what in our house is causing my baby to lose her hair?' And then... THEN... she turned to face me. And I realized she had.... BANGS!! My daughter hasn't had bangs in over a year- I have PROOF! And they weren't just any bangs- they were right at her scalp!! As I looked closer, I realized not only did she have bangs, she was missing over half her hair. No joke! That insane child had been in her room, with a pair of SAFETY SCISSORS, just hacking off her hair! It was truly one of those parenting moments where your heart takes a picture and you don't know whether to laugh, cry, or scream.

All the hair she cut off- literally! Looks like a bad wig, huh?

As I got upset (inevitably!), her brother (alerted to my frenzy by all the yelling) brought me a small box from her room where she was apparently keeping all the evidence of her crime. It was at that point that I learned the magnitude of the situation. I don't know if she was trying to thwart Mommy CSI or what, but it didn't work! By the time I brushed all the loose hair out of her head, she looked like a street urchin from 1800's London! 'Please sir, may I have some more?'

I knew I had no choice but to take her the next day for a haircut to try and fix what she messed up. Her brother had to go along too, because she wasn't content just to slice and dice herself, she gave him a chop job too! I knew we were going to have to give her a massively short haircut- and this child has had long hair for as long as she can remember- so I didn't know how I was going to pull it off. I stayed up late researching hairstyles for little girls with fine hair who have to have ridiculously short haircuts- hoping to find something that she wouldn't totally balk at.

Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow

Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow

It was at this point that divine Mommy inspiration hit- I decided to channel her inner Princess! Our family all LOVES to watch Once Upon a Time and Ms. Priss is a big fan of Snow. When Snow is portrayed as Mary Margaret, she has this adorable pixie cut that I thought would be great with Tara's hair type and face shape. I downloaded every picture I could find- didn't breathe a word of my plan to anyone- and traipsed off to Fantastic Sam's the next day.

We got lucky enough to get a phenomenal stylist, Tracy, who worked really well with Tara and made her very comfortable about the cut. As we were going through, we found areas where Ms. Priss sheared the hair literally down to the very scalp- crazy kid! After we were done, Tara was still quite apprehensive until I showed her the pictures of Snow and told her that we cut her hair so she looked just like 'Snow White'. After that, it was like there was never a problem! Grab a toy- good to go!

AFTER! Suits her so well! Cute, fresh, and spunky- just like my own little princess!

I have to say, I was worried that even I wasn't going to like it- but I LOVE IT!! Her daddy, who was going to be my hardest sell, actually likes it! It suits her spunky personality- and she even told me she doesn't want to grow it back it out! Every time I brush her hair, she asks if I'm making her look like 'Snow White'. I can't help but smile and feel relief that I don't have to wait for years to look back on this and laugh... I can do that now- all thanks to a princess.