Before and After

This fall #1 insisted on finally having the dreadlocks he has wanted for about a year now. So we did it. It's only hair, and he has his own style which I admire greatly in a kid. He knew what he wanted and was confident and comfortable in his choice even though no one else he knows around here has dreads. He held tough and kept his chin up when people said stuff like, "You look like Albert Einstein." He didn't cave when people made all the typical comments about dreadlocks like, "Do they stink yet?" and "What about lice?" He liked his look, and we're proud of him for it. What he did not like was how high maintenance making dreadlocks is. It gave us nice quality, quiet time together as I backcombed and rolled each section of hair trying towork on each one of them at least once a week. He has really great hair, and it doesn't want to spontaneously dread itself up. It was work, and it tugged on his scalp when I worked on it. His eyes watered. My upper arms actually burned. It was a work in progress since it takes 3-6 months for hair to be really locked up. We were only about a month in.

Last night he decided that rather than lay his head in my lap again and bear with the tugging of hairs against his scalp as the backcombing inevitably entailed, he wanted it all off. No more dreadlocks, no more long hair. All off. So, we did it. I snipped each of his thirty dreadlocks off at the base, and then J fired up the clippers. #1 has not had short hair in years so to me he looked like his six year old self. He looks so much younger than he did yesterday. That isn't exactly what an almost eleven year old wants to hear, but it's true. Just so his attitude doesn't revert back to his six year old self.

And true to form, Zippy did not sit idly by while all this hair transformation activity occured. I'll post about his new 'do later.