Hair Raising

I was...shall we say..."adventurous" with hairstyles as a kid. And that is putting it nicely. I was very vocal about how I wanted my hair to look, and my mother always let me do whatever I wanted. I don't know if it was because she was an "older" mom and was just tired of fighting kid battles, or if she really just wanted me to have independence and choice, but regardless, she allowed me to make some bad decisions.

Here, let me take you on a hair retrospective.

Note exhibit A:

 I know...there are so many things wrong with this picture. Aside from the knitted ribbon that I'm wearing like a bolo tie, this was my first major hair cut. I just wanted short hair, and a teenager on my street had gotten a nice, cute short 'do. Being the ever-so-hip second grader I was, I insisted on getting the same cut. Never mind the fact that I couldn't put the same amount of effort into the styling as a teen! My mom took me right up to the salon and I walked away with this hot number. Woo-eee.

So then, I had this short hair, so I thought, 'hey, why not just go for it and get a Shirley Temple 'do?' Which is exactly, word-for-word, what I asked for. I asked to look like Shirley Temple. What did my  mom do? She sat me on two phone books at the kitchen table and proceeded to give me a home perm. And voila, here I am! Angel in a school play. I look like your grandma.

Ohhhh, Wendy, Wendy. Please, don't be jealous of my USA Olympics t-shirt (skin-tight, too!), or my awesome clip belt on my high-waisted jeans! Capping off the look is my grown-out perm look. Actually kind of looks like a bad cut I got in about 2002, honestly. I don't have pictures of that one, though.

Now let me warn you about this next one. It's going to BLOW. YOUR. MIND. Not because of the look itself, but because I asked, in no uncertain terms, for the look.  Here, let me preface it with a little description. I told my mom that I wanted it short on the sides, by my ears, and long in the back. I wanted the bangs and top to be PARTED down the MIDDLE and FEATHERED on the sides! You all, I ASKED for that! All because a girl in my class sported the same 'do and I wanted my hair like that, too. Without further ado...

Yes, I had a mullet. Not accidental mullet, even! Note the bad feathering...I never could "train" my hair to feather appropriately. The giant sweater vest and cloth-wrapped earrings only top off the look here. I do kind of remember my mom suggesting I rethink this one, but I was adamant, and I got my wish. Let me tell you, growing out a mullet ain't easy.

Over the rest of my years, my looks have been much less drastic, but I do always opt for change.

I've had this look:

The all-one-length pageboy type cut. Notice my hair was straight here. It didn't become curly until the last 10 years.

Super-short bob. I was growing out a bad cut. I actually kind of liked this one, but I'm not crazy about how the back of my head looks when my hair is short. Crazy? Probably. But still.

Longer bob, all one length. This wasn't a bad cut either, but also not the most flattering. Note again...straight hair.

You know what my hair looks like now--long and curly or straight, depending on the day and my level of motivation.

I tell you all of this because I can tell already that Amelia is going to be like me--very adventurous with her hair. At this point, she's only demanding about her hair styles, and that's an easy one to work with--I don't mind doing silly things with hairstyles, because they're not permanent. But, I can tell, she's going to want to have the crazy cuts, too. Right now she insists she wants incredibly long hair worn in two braids like Anna on Frozen. Hahaha..it's all fun and games, until she chooses a cut like SHIRLEY TEMPLE!!!  Little girls disguised as 80-year old-women are not cute, friends! I'm living proof!

I'm torn. I don't know whether to handle it like my mom and just go with it, or help her avoid making mistakes like her mother. Mistakes that live on forever in pictures. Mistakes that might end up on the interwebs, like my pictures above! I'm not afraid of putting them out there. If I can save just one child from making such fashion mistakes, all the mullets and poodle-perms will not have been in vain!

So what do I do?