Haircuts!

I've trimmed the boys' locs twice before. Last year around Thanksgiving, and the year before around Thanksgiving. They say that they want their locs long (the longer the better; they love being able to wear them in a ponytail, and they absolutely love the look of black men with long locs), but, really, in reality, they need them short. I want to oblige their long-loc desires. But the rational sane mother that I am tells me otherwise... they are very active (subtle code for WILD and CRAY-Z) little boys who swim in the pool all summer long (one word: chlorine), play in the sandbox 12 months of the year (dumping sand on their heads), roll in the grass/snow, and jump in the puddles (every.kind.of.puddle.imaginable.). They need short hair. And Kyle-- the little perfectionist (verging on obsessive compulsive) personality that he is... well... his hair starts to bug him the minute it gets into his eyes or onto his face. And I can't stand watching him constantly trying to push it away from his forhead. I got it into my head that I wanted to trim before Thanksgiving this year-- preferably before the start of school-- and when I suggested we trim their locs they (and Braydon too) were surprisingly receptive to the idea. They are adament about keeping their locs ("forever!!!!!! and ever! and ever!!!"), but they aren't opposed to trimming them. And so, today, during Meera's nap, we did it. This is a whole thing folks (for those of you who don't know black hair, believe me, it is a big thing). We washed, re-twisted, and trimmed... all in the time it took K & O to watch 'Finding Nemo'. Braydon and I consider this a major achievement. As soon as we were done, we took the pictures below. As you can see by the looks on their faces, the boys are thrilled with the results (as are we parents). We went out to lunch after-the-fact and at one point I noticed a black woman with gorgeous natural hair (braids) admiring the boys' hair from a distance (always a big ego boost for a white mom of black kids). Then, a couple minutes later, as we walked past her, she gave the boys huge smiles and said, enthusiastically, "I like your dreds!" Owen shouted, "thanks!" and kept going, but Kyle stopped and turned around to face her (he happened to be holding my hand, so I too turned toward her). She repeated herself, "I like your dreds!" He said, "Thank you very much! Actually, I just got a haircut this morning. My MOMMY did it." She looked at me, smiled hugely, and said, "Wow. Well, it looks GOOD!" And then Kyle skipped off (literally-- skipped). And later he said to me, "Mom, did you notice that black lady liked my hair? I think she thought it looked GORGEOUS!" Honestly, this whole hair thing is such a huge part of our life. It is a lot of work, but it is soooooooooooo woooooooooooooooorth ittttttttttttttttttttttttttt.