Hair.

I think I can safely say that my mom was obsessed with my hair while I was growing up. Every time she took a picture of me I would have to turn around so she could get a picture of my hair. It started when I was very young.

And kept up I got older.

And through the skating years.

And even when it was fake hair. See the bald head in the bottom right part of this picture? That was the head I kept this hairpiece on. I used to have to put my real hair up in a bun underneath and then pin this hairpiece on before competitions. I had a bunch of scarves that I tied around the top so you couldn’t see where they joined. And my mother used to spend actual money to take that fake hair to the beauty shop and get curls redone! Why did I have to wear the fake hair? I think because that’s what my skating pro used to do and we just fell into place.

And high school mascot time too.

But the picture taking is only part of the hair memories. When I in kindergarten she cut off my long hair up into a short pixie cut. I looked like a little boy. We were doing a play where we wore these paper Dutch hats and everyone teased me and told me to keep my hat on all the time. As my hair grew out, at last, I begged my mom to set it with pin curls like she and my grandmother did almost every night. She did, finally, for picture taking day at school.

School picture day was a really big deal to my mom so she was not at all happy the year I forgot to give her form that told her when it was and I got my school picture taken the way I looked on a regular day.

I had lots of headbands. Those soft fabric ones and the hard plastic ones. I had those plastic barrettes that had animal shapes. We didn’t have a shower in our house so washing my hair meant doing it in the kitchen sink. My mom would lay a towel out on the kitchen counter and I would lay down on my back on the hard tile. She would roll another towel up and put it under my neck. And then she would wash my hair, using a giant measuring cup to rinse it clear with Tame creme rinse that was supposed to get the tangles out. Afterwards I would sit on a stool in the kitchen while she combed out all the snarls. If you’ve read my book, Hugging the RockΒ  you might remember that there were several scenes about hair in it, including the hair washing scene from my childhood. Lots of emotion attached to me and my hair.

Your turn. What do you remember about hair from your childhood?