Hair Cuts

I would like to be able to claim that my 4 1/2 year old daughter has never had a hair cut, but I can't. She was born with a full head of hair and at 3 months old we had to style it with bows and head bands just to keep it out of her face. Both her Tata and I are in love with long flowing Polynesian hair. She has the perfect combination, soft, wavy and silky hair. There is some Fijian tradition that you don't cut little girls hair until a certain date. My sister-in-law didn't have her first hair cut until she was 10 years old. However, I told Tata at the rate Girly's hair grows she will be walking on it by the age of 10. So we settled on her 5th birthday as the time when she would receive her first hair cut. Well that was a few years ago. Girly has taken it upon herself to cut her own hair. To date she has had 5 hair cuts total! Yep 5! and 4 were in the last month alone. Her first self hair cut was in March of 2006. I cried so hard, because she cut it so short in the front section it looked like she was trying to scalp herself. Until that piece grew long enough to hide in a pony tail she wore what we called the "Donald Comb-over!" I think we made her feel so bad after that because anytime we mentioned cutting her hair she would cry! Great our guilt worked! Or so we thought. If we even talked about having a professional cut it she would swell up with tears, shouting, NO! NO! NO! Phew we were safe. The first hair cut!

Well, in the last month she decided that when ever anything gets stuck in her hair she just takes a pair of scissors to remove it herself. To date she has cut out chewing gum, and 3 pony tail holders. Instead of coming to one of us and asking if we will help get them out she just finds the nearest pair of scissors and simply removes the object with long strand of hair attached. Then she proceeds to bring us the handful of hair. Some times we find the hair on the floor. She just drops it there once the annoyance is removed. Lucky for us with her curls you can't tell and it looks like she has layered hair. However there is no rhyme or reason to her layers because she just cuts randomly. After this last episode I decided that was it. We were heading to a professional to try and fix the damage. But we had another instance of immense tears. Seriously I don't get why she is so scared to have someone else cut her hair when she is willing to do it herself all the time. I have caught her trying to attempt to remove another pony tail holder and told her to come to me and I was able to untangle it with out having to remove any hair. So now I am at a loss as to what to do. I've decided I won't mention getting a professional hair cut again until her birthday. Then we can play it up to what a grown up thing it will be and how much fun it is to go and have your hair styled. I have also removed all the scissors from her sight; they are now hidden in a special place in our office. Hopefully this will derail any thoughts of cutting her hair again. Maybe this is her secret addiction. Who knows.

This is what her hair looks like today. It is any one's guess as to what it will look like tomorrow!