What Beautiful Red Hair!

When I was growing up, my sister had (well, she still has, to be precise) beautiful, thick, auburn hair. So thick she has to use the extra-large ponytail holders. And it's naturally curly, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, except that Julia Roberts had to use a bottle and my sister's hair is just like that normally. It's gorgeous, and for many, many years I was insanely jealous of her hair. This couldn't in any way be connected to the time in the grocery store check-out line when an obviously tactless old lady leaned in, peered at me, peered at my baby sister in her infant carrier and exclaimed, "What beautiful red hair! What happened to the other one?"

My hair, on the other hand, is baby-fine and naturally a rather unattractive ash-blond color, which I help out by visiting the blond fairy once every six weeks or so. When I was younger, though, there was no coloring hair (though I've noticed it doesn't stop high-schoolers and even middle-schoolers today), so I was stuck with what I had. I did lay in the sun a lot with my hair covered in lemon juice. I even tried Sun-In, which is a very scary product that smells like bus stations, but it didn't really work.

I've always hated it when people refer to my hair as "thin" instead of "fine." To me, thinning hair connotes elderly men with combovers, which is not quite the problem I have - yet. The problem I have is getting out of showers, towel-drying and looking as though a condor landed on my head and prepared a nest for its young. The problem I have is that folks can actually SEE THROUGH my hair when I try to grow it long. I can hold up half the hair on my head with one bobby pin. I had a little hope when Lord of the Rings was popular, because that whole fairy thing seemed to be going my way, but the style never caught on. Alas, I have since discovered that a stick-straight, chin-length bob is the only way to cooperate with my hair, and you will probably see me as a grandmother with a blond, chin-length bob. It's all I know how to do.

When I was pregnant, I lost the hair you are supposed to lose post-partum in my first trimester. Not only was I seasick daily on dry land, I also thought I might go bald. Now I have bangs on one half of my head, which I try unsuccessfully to hide. A huge chunk fell out right above my left eyebrow. I don't think anyone noticed but me, but it felt like I needed Rogaine For Women. Very traumatic. The good news, I thought, was that I had ALREADY GONE THROUGH THE HAIR LOSS. Oh, no, I was so wrong.

Now, at fourteen and a half weeks post-partum, it has begun. Again. Suddenly, I am looking down into my little angel's smiling mouth to find long strands of blond hair poking from her lips. They are wrapped around her bottles. They are in between her toes. The cat plays with them sometimes, and then hacks them back up along with her own, baby-fine and graying hair. It is not pretty. I imagine that someday I will come home from the dreaded office and find that she has created a new kitty castle out of Summer's End Blonde.

Oh, and by the way, my baby got that red hair. It had better be the good, thick kind.