Farewell to Childhood

All seven of my beautiful daughters have had gorgeous hair....and long! I have lived vicariously through them and have so enjoyed the wonderful styles we've been able to achieve. Well, OK, mostly they learned to achieve the beautiful styles....but I can throw together a mean Princess! (My girls know what this style is!) I have always really balked at letting the girls cut their hair and always told them "When you move out of the house, THEN you can cut your hair!" But my last, Brenna, has struggled with her hair for so many years. It is SOOOOOO thick and has such texture that it tangles like velcro. Shower-time became a real ordeal, often taking nearly 35 minutes just to get all that hair washed, rinsed, conditioned and rinsed again. And then, after all that, she often emerged with unclean hair anyway, due to shampoo or conditioner that she just could not get rinsed out. And so, we made the plunge.....oh heck, I made the plunge. She's been ready to do this for years! We drove up to Shanna's house and had her cut Brenna's hair. I could not watch, but sat in the livingroom, while Shanna snipped away my last baby's childhood in the kitchen.

It instantly added five years to Brenna's age! But, even though it was really hard for me to accept, it was well worth it. Brenna LOVES it and it has made life so much easier for her. I suppose I will get used to it with time. But for the first few days, every time she walked into the room, I'd do a double-take, caught off-guard by her loveliness and her sudden maturity.

Parent Teacher Conferences...One Eternal Round!

Today I attended Parent Teacher Conference at the Middle School with Brenna. As with all of the girls, this is a no brainer. They are always wonderful students - respectful, hard-working, focused and achievers. But this conference was just a little different. Brenna and I had been at the school for about 15 minutes when I looked down the hall and saw Shanna, who was there for Brinley's parent teacher conference meetings. She wandered down the hall and we stood, visiting, for a few minutes. And I was struck by how weird this really is....me - there at school with my youngest daughter; checking on her progress, shaping her and molding her into responsible adulthood - and my eldest daughter, there also, doing the exact same things for her daughter. It was a very interesting mix of emotions.