Baby Hair and Dreadlocks

When I was pregnant with Libby, I was sure I was going to give birth to a bald baby. Jared and I were both bright blondes as kids and I hardly had hair until I was 2. I had always imagined my babies as hairless. Eventually, all this imagining of baldness turned into a preference for baldness and then a repulsion of anything other than baldness. At one point during my pregnancy, I even told Jared "I don't care what our baby looks like; I just hope it doesn't have hair."

Well imagine my surprise when I was pushing Libby out and the doctor said, "I see a head full of dark hair." Instead of thinking "awesome! the head is almost out!" I remember thinking, "oh no. hair."

When the shock wore off, I realized that I actually loved Libby's head full of dark hair. (Even if the hospital lactation consultant did accuse Libby of being the milkman's baby.) As a bonus, Libby's long hair helped disguise her misshapen head.

My little Piper looked quite different than Libby at birth, but she also had a head full of long, dark hair. This time, I expected it and loved it from the beginning.

Piper's hair is long (I can put it in a ponytail on top) and tends to stand straight up. It's curly when it's wet or humid outside. She sometimes looks like a mom from the 90s with one set of bangs curled down and another curled up. Strangers comment often on the craziness of her hair. My favorite? "I have never seen a Caucasian baby with that much hair."

The quirkiest feature of Piper's hair is its ability to form dreadlocks in record time. If I don't comb her hair every day or so, she'll wind up with a gnarly dreadlock in the back. The first time it happened, Jared said, "I think you're gonna have to cut it out." I've gotten pretty good at getting them out with detangling spray and a fine-tooth comb. Recently, we seem to have lost our detangling spray and I put off combing her hair for a little too long. Before I knew it, she had 4 separate dreadlocks. This time, I did have to break off a few chunks that wouldn't comb out.