Sweet Madeleine

An evolution of hair

When I was vastly, magnificently pregnant I had four wishes for our unborn child. First, that he or she be healthy. Of course. Second and third: Strong, and happy. And fourth?

Fourth I wished that my child would have hair.

I have no idea what I did right to warrant having every single one of these fervent prayers being answered, but our funny Olive Grace was born healthy, happy, strong, and yes, with a full head of hair.

It was dark and lovely, and I felt so grateful (for the other three especially, I mean. Not just the hair.)

Then, all of that lovely hair started falling out. Olive developed a hilarious cul de sac of baldness, and although I was aware of it at the time I don’t remember thinking it looked super weird. Looking back, HOLY BALLS Olive, you had some kind of strange hair situation goin’ on girl.

But guys, nothing that has ever happened with her hair thus far - not the first surprising appearance of it (Adam as they pulled her out of me, “It’s a girl! And she has tons of hair!”), and not the hair loss and not the bald patch at the back where her head rubs, no, nothing has been as strange as this.

BOOM! OMG, right?

Would sir desire another? But of course!

Obviously (and unfortunately, because seriously LOOK at it!) that isn’t her hair, it’s the wig off of a creepy doll whom Adam cruelly scalped and then used to exploit our daughter for our own amusement.

Um? TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Also:

You knew that was coming, right? Oh, Gus. Thank you for not eating our faces when we do this shit to you.

Are you getting an Elvis vibe? Something about the little curl over his ear.

Anyway, even when we aren’t putting wigs on her Olive’s hair is kind of crazy. There’s an odd mix of long wispy strands of old hair, and thick fuzzy new hair, and it is thickest right in the middle of her forehead where it gathers into an attractive point, comme ca:

All of Olive’s headbands are all packed away somewhere, and I wanted a way to keep her hair from forming that demonic point and making her look a Munster, so we’ve been using barrettes from a cute Canadian company called Baby Wisp. Their barrettes clip to basically nothingness- if your baby has one strand of hair you’re set. As Olive has lots of strands of hair, but not enough for a big hair clip, these fit the bill perfectly. Also, my brother hasn’t sent me even one ragey email about them! (He hated when I put headbands on Olive. Pffft, what does he know about baby hair accessories?!)

Anyway, these days her hair situation is kept somewhat under control by a rotating set of barrettes, looking like this:

and this

But I’m pretty sure I can see a widows peak developing, and she still bears a sweet little mullet of baby hair, so the evolution is not quite complete yet - Oh Olive, you crazy kid. I am counting down the days until I can give you ridiculous pig tails…it’s definitely happening!

I’m not sure why I felt that the world needed a seventeen picture retrospective of my daughter’s hair situation on a Thursday night, it just sort of happened. Sorry to say you will never get those ten minutes back.

Okay give me a just a few more seconds, for THIS:

TABERNAC!

That’s a French-Canadian swear, that title. You can use it to feel fancy - even swearing sounds chic en Francais.

Today it was a lovely sunny day, and I decided to take my lovely dog and my lovely daughter for a walk. I loaded Olive into her bear suit and into her Ergo (I still haven’t chosen a stroller. I just…can someone stop me please? Just make this decision for me. Seriously. I just keep discovering new options and I think I’m leaning towards a jogging stroller and I found one called a Bumbleride which just sounds deeelightful, doesn’t it and oh god I’m even boring myself but I can’t stop seriously help).

Anyway. I got Olive loaded, Gus leashed up, put on my hat and headed out. 

Oh! what a gorgeous day! Brisk and sunny and dry, we walked through neighbourhoods and I admired the flowers poking their heads through the grass and it was all bucolic and fantastic and sublime. 

AND THEN. 

Then we walked past a hedge, a regular sort of hedge that you might find bordering innumerable lawns in almost every town and city everywhere. Nothing remarkable about it. 

But hedges, as you know, are not solid matter. Instead they are little trees, with branches and leaves and - this will be important - space between these branches and leaves. Sometimes things lurk in these spaces, and because they are inside of the hedge, hidden by those leaves and oh yes, the branches, one can not see them.

And one’s dog, one’s fucking RIDICULOUS almost-200 lb dog can not see them either, GODDAMMIT.

Ahem.

So picture me, my precious infant daughter strapped to my chest, strolling along feeling like a hot mama in my leggings and my sweater and my boots, enjoying the feeling of the sun on my face, looking out over the ocean and thinking to myself, “Self, I think things are looking pretty good right about now.”

BAM! BIRD FUCKERY! A giant swarm of birds shoots out of the hedge in a giant cluster of beating wings and chirping and darting movements, and I can’t even tell you what kind of bird they were - swallows? sparrows? parrots?- because I was too busy being DEMOLISHED by my insane ridiculous fraidy-cat dog who was so terrified, terrified of these tiny little 8 oz birds that he took off. Just bolted. Like, “..tha fuck is that? Gus OUT.”. Mic drop and he was gone.

Not only did I not have time to even see what kind of birds the offending birds were, but I didn’t even have time to mock Gus, my stupid ridiculous almost-200 lb dog, for being afraid of them. Why? BECAUSE HIS LEASH WAS ATTACHED TO MY HAND. 

Where most leashes go, when you are taking your dog for a walk in the sun because you know he loves walks and that’s just the kind of person I am, GUS.

So. Birds shoot out of the hedge. Gus bolts. Gus is attached to the leash, the leash is attached to me, and I am yanked over onto my side and it happened so fast I didn’t even have time to regain my footing or steady myself ( and on what? the hedge? the bird cluster?) and I hit my left hip and my ass and put my left hand out to break my fall so that I don’t crush Olive, who was sleeping peacefully in her little bear suit unaware of this impending fuckery.

It was all a blur (I say, with a quavering voice). I hit the ground hard, and skinned the heel of my hand, and Olive’s head banged into my sternum but she didn’t make a peep and so while I was bleeding and trying to collect myself I was also frantically trying to peel back her bear suit so that I could see if she was alright.

Internets, she slept through the whole thing. And as I lay on my ass on the pavement, Gus loped back to me, (oh! suddenly the birds aren’t so scary?) and looks bashful and apologetic and my hand is stinging with gravel and tears prick my throat and suddenly I feel like I’m in third grade and fell off the monkey bars, trying to hold back tears so the sixth graders don’t laugh at me. 

When was the last time you skinned your hands? Or your knees? That stinging pinch of dirt and pavement. What a strange nostalgia. 

I wasn’t thinking this at the time though, I wasn’t sitting there on my sore ass waxing poetic about third grade. I was getting to my feet and trying to corral Gus who was now trying to do anything to avoid me because I may have screamed obscenities to him in the middle of the street. (And by “screamed”, I mean “hissed” in a sinister whisper because somehow Olive was still sleeping.)

So then I returned home, and washed my hand and left that good for nothing mongrel with Adam’s dad. The I went and bought so much wool that I may have to start selling toques and neck cowls again just to pay for it. 

How was your friday?