*sniff*

The luscious golden locks are gone.  It was a sudden, spur of the moment thing - I had just showered Peanut and brushed his hair - always a dangerous time, because it always looks much, much longer wet.  Much longer.  And, admittedly, it had been looking awfully long dry as well.  In my mind's eye, his hair was long but not too long.  Still more like this:

 Or even this - a little longer, but still not too long:

But, in reality, it was looking a little more like this.  Okay, exactly like this:

Until that fateful, wet hair day, I decided it needed a trim. 

I still wanted it long, just not.. so... "beautiful girl" long. 

So I tried to cut it shoulder length.  But cutting a wiggly boy's hair, who is screaming at you the whole time, is not easy.  Which is why I usually use clippers on my boys.  But I didn't want it clipper-short!  So this was the result.

Still cute, right?  Still long?  I loved his left side, his right side not so much - but it looked all right.  Until it dried.  Horribly uneven.  Huge chunks here and there.  It was a mess.  You couldn't tell as much when it was curly, but there were enough cold dry days that made every uneven hunk extremely apparent.  My poor child.  So, the scissors came out again and I had to even it up.  A lot.  

So know my cute curly headed baby is shorn.  Okay, not really.  It is still pretty long.  But much shorter than I intended it to be.  And it makes him look so old!!  More little boy than big baby.  The good news?  It is growing on me.  The even better news?  That beautiful hair grows extremely fast, is still curly, and will soon be back in all its glory.  Yippee!!

And yes, I am slightly embarrassed by how many pictures I had of just his beautiful curly long hair.  But not too embarrassed to wish I had taken even more. 

WARNING!! SANTA SPOILERS AHEAD!!

We have a complicated relationship with Santa in our house, starting in the wee hours of our marriage when my husband brought up his Santa issues.  Seriously.  He couldn't rationalize lying to our children about a mythical being coming into our house every Christmas Eve to bring presents.  Okay.  I could understand his moral and ethical position, I really could.  But what to do?  I don't remember any traumatic "There's no SANTA?!!" revelation in my childhood, so I wasn't worried about future repercussions in celebrating Santa. The thought of letting my children have a Santa-less reality was just too harsh.  But he felt really strongly about it.  So one of our first marital compromises was kind of a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.  We wouldn't actively preach "Santa", but would also not actively deny his existence. 


Fast forward to 2006, the husband and the policy had relaxed to a point where Santa was mentioned on a seasonal basis as the bringer of fabulous things on Christmas.  Yay for Santa!!  But I didn't take into consideration the rational pessimism of my too-bright children.  Jace was 6 and was already vocally asserting that he didn't think Santa was real.  On the 23rd of December he decided to put Santa to the test - he wrote a letter to Santa pleading for a fish, and proclaimed to us that if Santa was real he would get a fish for Christmas.  Ok, we're two capable people, we can manage to get a fish for our belief-tottering boy.  The kink in our masterful plan?  The 23rd was a Saturday.  Meaning December 24th was a Sunday.  Since we don't shop on Sunday, this meant we had to get a fish immediately and keep it alive and hidden for two nights and a day.  So my husband ran out into a snowy night to Walmart after kids were in bed while I went searching in our storage for the old aquarium.  Success!!  Unfortunately the tank was cracked.  Lovely.  So it was my turn to drive slushy roads 10 miles back to Walmart to buy a fish bowl.  But Christmas morning arrived and a fish (later christened Herman) graced Jace's dresser.  Success!!  Boyish delight!!!  Santa's helpers have saved the day!!


Until two days later he realized we had probably manufactured the whole thing and was back to his Santa pessimism.  What, you ask, were his siblings doing during this trial of his faith?  8 year old Erik, who grew up when the original Santa policy was full force, has never had a strong belief in Santa.  He just goes with the flow, accepting presents, not really caring who they come from.  My 2 year old was clueless.  My 4 year old Diva must have been soaking it in, because now, three years later, at 7 years old she is a vocal disbeliever.  VOCAL disbeliever.  Enough so that her first grade teacher asked me to please, please ask her to stop telling her classmates there is no Santa.  This beautiful, elfin-like girl was gleefully crushing the beliefs of all around her.  Gleefully. 

So we had a chat, her teacher had a chat, and all is hopefully bottled up for another year.  My husband, in a complete reversal, has been "Santa"ing it up to my 4 and 2 year old boys.  We may have failed with our first three, but by golly our last two children WILL believe in Santa!!!!!!!!!!  Unfortunately, my 4 year old is the most rational of them all.  This is the child who, six months ago, declared he didn't believe in God because he had never seen him before.  We have dealt with that trial of faith, we'll see if he follows in his siblings' footsteps and has a different kind of trial of faith some future Christmas.