Strawberry Blonde

Jacob was my little green-eyed blondie.

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I admit I was a little surprised when my firstborn, Sarah, arrived with brown hair. Being one of 5 tow-heads myself, I'd always sort of envisioned my children as blonde. However, she inherited her father's beautiful golden-brown curls, so it's all good.

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Then Jacob came along, with the same thick, almost-white hair that my siblings and I grew up with. I couldn't bring myself to cut it.

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This is Jacob about a month before his 2nd birthday, 21 May 1993.

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When he was two-and-a-half I finally gave in to my dad's grumblings that his grandson looked like a girl, and I allowed my mom to give him his first haircut. However, I had her leave a cute little curly tail at the very back.

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A few months after he turned 3, I came home from work one day to find strands of long blonde hair strewn all over the couch. Then I found the scissors and realized my baby had cut off that little tail. It seems silly now, but I broke down and cried.

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I really did not want my babies to grow up. But they have, like it or not.

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Over the years, Jacob's hair became dark blonde. Recently he's been talking about dying his hair to a less "boring" color. His word, not mine.

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I think God is smart enough to give us the hair color that's right for us. I've toyed with the thought of lightening mine to the bright blonde it used to be, but I've never actually gone there. Now I'm ridiculously proud of the silver hairs that are finally starting to appear.

On the other hand, dye is temporary, so I feel it's one way kids can express themselves freely without long-lasting damage. I gave Jacob permission to let his friend Chelsea (above) be creative with his hair. I only asked that she give him a haircut at the same time.

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When I arrived at Chelsea's house to pick up Jacob for Mutual (photo at right) his hair wasn't much shorter--Chelsea only gave him "a trim," she said--but it sported these streaks of bleached blonde and copper.

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"Well, it's interesting but not too shocking," I said as diplomatically as I could.

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Jacob was happy with the color that night--while it was dark! Most people at Mutual (they were having a movie night) didn't say much about it.

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Then he went to school yesterday. After school he came to my classroom and announced that he hated his hair and his friend Bryce was going to shave his head for him, because no way was he going to work looking like that!

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Apparently several people gave him a hard time about his new 'do. Some folks don't handle change well. One person said he looked like a racoon. High schoolers, gotta love 'em.

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I managed to calm him and avoid his drastic plan. I had to stay after school for a meeting, but I pulled scissors out of my desk and quickly trimmed away the parts that bothered him most before he went home.

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I promised to take him to a professional first thing Saturday morning (today). He wanted to have them dye it all one color, but I said no more dye for now. Too damaging.

Besides, sometimes the best lessons are the ones we have to live with for awhile.

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So the cosmetologist cut off what she could, trimmed the rest to blend together the best she could, and gave him a mineral soak to hopefully mute the colors a bit.

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Is this the face of hair-style regret or what!?

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The solution isn't perfect, but he can live with it for now.

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For me, it worked out pretty well. He finally got that haircut I've been pestering him to get for months now!

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After all this, I drove him straight to his job at the restaurant and took this picture before he went inside. One thing I never imagined was having a red-headed child!

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But that's okay. For now he's my green-eyed strawberry blonde, and I'll love him forever!