cat named pig

It was just about a year ago (the day before Thanksgiving, I believe) that Siena gave herself a little haircut lopped off about seven inches of perfectly good hair and I had to trim the rest into something approximating a bob. A bob with a few random inch-long chunks of hair that stood straight up every time she got out of bed or took off a hat.

She’s had a couple of professional haircuts in the last year, and those short uneven pieces have finally started to blend in to the rest of her layers. And her hair overall has grown out to almost the same length it was pre-butchering last fall. 

Well, I must be feeling nostalgic, or that cold medicine should have more warning labels on the box, or something, because this morning I decided it would be a really good idea to give Siena another haircut. (I’ll spare you any suspense you may be feeling: it was not a really good idea.)

It came about because she hates having her hair combed or styled. Lately, she won’t let me do anything more to it than run a comb through (while she tests my commitment to the process by SCREAMING. IN MY FACE.) and put a barrette in the pieces that get in her eyes. And then the hair escapes the barrette and falls in her face anyway, so she mostly looks like this:

(Elliot mostly looks like he does here too, just watching his crazy sister and grinning.)

So I’ve been telling her for a few weeks that we either need to get a haircut or SUCK IT UP ALREADY and let me style her hair. Don’t worry, I’ve been phrasing it slightly differently to her. And she’s been telling me that she wants long hair, that long hair is beautiful, and that she will good, she promises. And then she proceeds to break that promise the second I pick up the comb most mornings.

Today, I had had enough. Thinking back to the fairly decent (given what I had to work with) bob I managed to give her last year, I decided to cut it myself again today. You can buy a lot of cheap wine for the $17-plus-tip a Kids’ Hair appointment would cost. And who wants to deal with chasing Elliot around a room full of scissors, hair product displays, and five hundred other people while Siena gets her hair cut? Not me. I’d rather stay home and drink cheap wine. So I told myself it would be fine, was even a good idea, for me to give her a haircut. I was wrong. Asymmetrical bobs only look good on celebrities, when cut by celebrity stylists.

Siena got bored of standing still about three seconds into the process, and was left with a jagged mess that is clearly longer on one side than the other.

When I pick her up from preschool today, we’re heading straight to Kids’ Hair. And after that appointment, I’ll definitely be drinking some cheap wine.