a hair-raising weekend

We had a very exciting weekend! On Saturday, Tracy joined his Army Reserve unit in Dallas and jumped from the back end of a C-130. He was the last guy out of the plane…and got dropped into a wind pattern that swept him right into the only stand of trees on the drop zone! This was his first arboreal landing in almost twenty years of airborne ops…luckily the only things that got broken were the tree limbs when he had to cut his parachute down.

Today, we decided it was time to pay a probably long overdue visit to the hair salon. Pook, Bean and Bitty enjoyed meeting Erica, who regularly cuts Tracy’s hair. We’ve been talking to Pookie about getting her hair cut for a couple weeks. This is a traumatic topic for her, so we’ve been trying to ease her into it. It seemed to work, and she said she was ready to go in for a trim.

A couple weeks ago, I told Beanie about Locks of Love. She equates it with sorting through her toys and clothes – “we can give our hair to kids who don’t have any!” Last week, I got my hair cut into a chin-length bob, so when we got ready to head to the salon and asked her about getting her hair cut, she said, “I want my hair like my momma’s!” She kept saying it, all day, the whole time Pookie was getting hers trimmed, and finally, once more, when her turn came. Erica was happy to oblige and I know the Locks of Love folks will be happy to have her ponytail!

Beanie in the chair

Pookie, who was happy with her trim when it was over, decided that she wanted her hair “like my sister’s!” Inevitably, Pookie is going to cry at the hair salon. Last time, she cried because we cut it. This time, she cried because we wouldn’t cut it! She begged and begged for us to let her cut it short. We explained that she wouldn’t be like Jasmine or Ariel if she cut her hair short. She cried and pouted and begged some more. We told her we would wait two weeks and then if she still wanted it cut, we would come back. She pouted, but agreed. Last night at bath time, she said, “I decided I will keep my hair long until I am six. Maybe then I will cut it.” Whew! Glad we got that one right.

Bitty was the scene stealer of the day. Summer finally hit Austin with a vengeance and we decided to cool him off with his first real hair cut. I don’t think anybody realized that his hair was halfway down his back! At first he didn’t want to sit in the chair and he told Erica, “I mad atchoo!” But then he realized he was getting all the attention and he enjoyed it.

Bitty before...

and after! What a heartbreaker!