LOLs and other things
posted in Alaska, Friends, Gymnastics, OmegaDotter, Parenting, Science, Winter |It has been a busy week here.
First up, we had the lunar eclipse. OmegaDotter had her best bud A. over, and the two of them were running all over the place, but not interested in going out into the cold, cruel backyard, so we managed to steer them to the window on the entryway landing, where they could see it as it happened. In the meantime, OmegaDad and I were in and out and peering and photographing and trying out my dad’s small telescope (which, lacking a spotting lens, was a bust). I took many shaky, blurry pictures, but finally wised up and braced myself against the corner of the house to get this view of the almost-totally eclipsed moon and some stars (faint):
Cropped and blown up, it looks like this:
I was pretty pleased. Not bad for a hand-held camera, though there were a number of truly lovely pictures floating around the web from people who had Real Live Telescopes to photograph through. Sigh.
Then—then!—We had winter solstice. Not that we did anything to celebrate, but boy howdy, let me tell you, looking at NOAA’s weather website for Big City, which always shows how much gain or loss of sunlight we have had, and seeing a positive number–all five seconds of it!—thrilled me no end.
“But, but…,” you’re saying. “OmegaMom—what were the LOLs about?!”
Ahhh.
Well.
Over the past year, I have been propagandizing OmegaDotter about Locks of Love. This propaganda was my attempt to make her think of others, think of doing things for others, with it being a serious donation, not just a “Oh, well, I don’t like that toy anymore; put it in the donate bag!” approach. OmegaDotter has adored having long hair, and loved the various hairstyles we can do—French braids, joined ponytails, “French” ponytails, plain braids, buns, high-up ponytail, low-down ponytail or braids, etc. etc.
When I first started talking about Locks of Love, she shied away immediately from the whole idea.
I didn’t push it. I just mentioned it now and then.
Then, a few weeks ago, a long-time blogging buddy who also adopted from China posted about her daughter having her hair cut for LOL. I showed OmegaDotter the pictures.
And suddenly—suddenly it clicked. Firstly, “ooh, a cute short haircut!” clicked. And secondly, donating her hair clicked.
So we made a date, all three of us. OmegaDotter would donate her hair and get a short haircut. A. would get his hair cut shorter for basketball. I would get mine trimmed so it wouldn’t look so shaggy while I’m growing it out.
So off we went.
Here she is, pre-cut:
Her hair was down to her waist. The hairties are to separate her hair into ponytails for donation. The hair stylist took the ponytails and braided the hair, then ::snip!:: off they came:
This is what she looked like post-shearing and pre-styling:
We had researched short hair styles and found her a style she liked—a bob with the hair cut shorter underneath, so it curls under.
This is the end result:
We got it done at Great Clips, and it was free (which I didn’t expect). They even handled packing it up and sending it in.
OmegaDotter loves her flippy new do, and has even figured out how to pull the top layer back into a ponytail to keep it out of her face for gymnastics.
I’m very proud of her.
