Skye comes home next week, and for the first time ever I have an overwhelming sense of dread when I think of her return. Not because I don’t miss my daughter with my every fiber, but because when she gets back I can no longer avoid the thing I’ve been putting off for over four years.

Skye’s first haircut.

I used to trim her bangs before we decided to let them grow out last year, but never before have scissors come near the rest of her beautiful locks. Skye’s hair is thin and hangs past her butt. When she was a baby she had the most perfect baby curls.

I think that’s what makes me tear up any time I think of cutting it. Why I’ve avoided it for so very long. I’m a sentimental sap as a rule, even more so when it comes to Skye. When I cut off those few inches of baby hair, that will be the end of the curls. Her hair will be the same stick straight fizz machine that mine is.

The only reason I’m even considering it now is because her hair is in very real danger of hanging down into the danger zone during potty accidents. The last thing in the world I want to do with my evening is spend it washing poop out of my daughter’s hair. Then there’s the twenty minute ordeal of combing out the knots, something I’ve been doing less frequently the longer it grows.

I know how silly it is to be so upset by hair; it is after all, just hair. But it’s not just her hair, it’s one of the last remnants of her baby phase gone away like all the rest.

The dimples on elbows and kneecaps are fading. She can feed and dress herself, and isists upon the latter especially. She’s four going on fourteen. The only features left of her baby days are the teeth, and I know I’ll cry over the first one lost. Maybe the others too, though I may not admit it.

Just one more year and she’ll be starting kindergarten. The thought absolutely boggles me. How is it possible that she’s already that big? You always hear parents say it again and again, how quickly the time passes in the life of a child. One minute you’re holding them in your arms or scaring away the monsters beneath the bed and the next, you’re dropping them off in their dorm room or walking them down the isle.

But I’m not ready. She’s still my baby, and will continue to be so when she’s 18, 45 or even 60. I carried her inside of me for nine months, but I’ve been carrying her inside my heart every day since I first looked on her face.

I am cherishing every second I have between now, when she still wants to be held by her mommy and later, when she’ll likely want little to do with me. I will just have to try and be brave, get through Skye’s first haircut without crying overmuch. At least not in front of her. She’s brave enough for the both of us, so I will be able to follow her example.

I have to keep telling myself it’s just hair, and it will continue to grow. Just like my baby.

 

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