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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Happy hair

Today Erica came home from school begging to get her hair colored. One of her friends had been to the kuafor here and had red streaks put in her hair. And by red I mean hot pink. She went to school today and was told that she had to have a natural color...that red was ok, but pink was not. She was heading back to the kuafor to have her pink streaks changed to red, and Erica begged to go along and have hers done as well. As some of you may know we are pretty open to hairstyles in our family. I mean...it's just hair. It will grow out, fade, possibly fall out, and soon a new crop of hair will take it's place. I was fine with her having her hair done but thought I should ask Brian what he thought. He said that it was a girl thing so it was my decision. Then he wanted to know what color she planned to dye her hair. I told him red. His response...like clown red or Nicole Kidman red? Well, I'm pretty sure, based on the hot pink hair, that she means clown red. He said it was still up to me. I said yes. So she went.


And she came home.


And now I am wondering how natural this color really is. I mean Elmo pulls it off and he's a natural redhead.

Then I proved to be the coolest, hippest mom on the planet. Erica was explaining that this is the hairstyle she wanted when we were in the states. The time I wouldn't let her color her hair. I said I wasn't sure how it would be taken there. We were newly back. I didn't want her to be judged or labeled based on her hair color. She said were you worried I would be considered emo? And I so knew what emo was! Because when Erica walked in the door (at 7:30pm) to show off her new hair we happened to have two 20something girls visiting us from the states. After Erica walked out of the room they said that her hair looked kinda emo and then explained that it was short for emotional. Not exactly goth or punk, but emo. One hour later when Erica used the term emo I acted like I had known that term my whole life. Ahhh...the joys of being one step ahead!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those streaks seem to be the latest rage here at the moment. I was amused when Abbie asked to have her hair braided with beads at 23 months, I am sure she will ask for streaks soon!

I think they sell some temporary stuff in the hair care section somewhere... which is what she will be getting!

She is pretty "emo" or is it just that she is two?

HeyJoe said...

Thanks for cluing in this father of a soon to be teenager.

Lost In Splendor said...

This is so great. I remember when I was 15 and my mom let me dye my hair pink. I was thrilled with it and her for the longest. Now it's normal boring adult brown. Oh well.

Sharon said...

I have pretty much the same hair philosophy but unfortunately Kevin doesn't. I figure it's not a moral issue so what difference does it make. He finaly gave in to Alyssa having strawberry blond highlights which if you don't her well, you wouldn't even know they're there. Zac wants to get some blond streaks which I was okay with, but Kevin said 'no'. Maybe I should show him your post so he can see it could be a lot more drastic. By the way, thanks for teaching me a new word to help me maintain my cool mom status although I haven't heard any of the kids say that one yet.

Unknown said...

This is not even closely related to this post...
I've been perusing your blog, love it by the way- really interested in it, and maybe I missed it but are you guys living in Turkey for a specific reason or simply because you want to? I'm fascinated by all of this!


Thanks for your compliment!

LiteralDan said...

By invoking Elmo yourself, you've deprived me of a joke-- I hope you're happy!

You should start cruising comments on YouTube and MySpace to stay up on all the kids' lingo.

annie said...

Yay! Photos of hair, and not feet!
It's adorable, I love crazy colors in hair, but I feel like I'm too old for that now. Hair grows out, so what's the big-gee?
But next, it's tattoos, ha-ha!

Givinya De Elba said...

Hi Natalie, thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment! It made my day.

Great hair, girls!

I'm curious, just like Stella. How did you get the exciting gig of living in Turkey? Looks wonderful!

GdeE.

AutoSysGene said...

I'm all about expression with hair. If my daughter wants green hair then she should go for it...of course my daughter is 5 right now, remind me of that when she gets older ;)

Natalie said...

charlie girl - she's two. she is allowed to be emo! but i don't know that i would do more than spray her hair with colored hairspray! even the washout stuff has chemicals that i wouldn't use on that precious baby hair!

heyjoe - no problem. today we dealt with crying and boys. ah...the joys of parenting a teenage girl!

sparkliesunshine - i only hope that erica will remember this when i say no to some of the other stuff she requests! she has mentioned a tattoo a couple of times. i told her that she had to wait until she was on her own for that one. i did!

sharon - i'll be interested to see if it helps to show kevin the pics. erica loves her hair still and they seemed to be ok with it at school so it looks like she can keep it!

stella - we took a job in turkey back in 2002. that's all. nothing big. pretty much because we wanted to do something different and give the kids an experience they wouldn't get in the states. we are headed back to the states in november.

literaldan - sorry! all i could think of was ronald mcdonald and elmo when i heard red. thankfully she looks better than both of those guys! and good idea! i might be scared of some of what i learn on those sites though!

annie - yep...hair. we love hair! and she has already mentioned a tattoo...but i said no way. she can get that after she leaves home. i don't care a bit if she gets one, but i want her to have thought about it and really want it for a long time!

givinya - you are welcome! loved the blog. read my comment to stella on how we got to turkey! we do love it here, but our time here is drawing to a close. i am sad and glad all at the same time!

melissa - yeah i know. i never dreamed i would be ok with weird hair, but honestly...it hasn't bothered me one bit for them to experiment with it that way. and i wouldn't let her color her hair until she turned 14. the first time we chose a color that was pretty much the same as her haircolor. just to see what it would do to her hair. now i figured she can do whatever she wants to it. it's just hair!

Heather said...

you are cool. my mother would never have allowed it. you should have seen the lobbying I had to do just to get a spiral perm in the 8th grade! of course, that turned out to be a horrible idea, but...that's neither here nor there.

i think she looks fab!

Unknown said...

I really think it's incredible! I don't know that I would be able to be apart from my extended family like that but I think the experiences you've had have got to be unbelievable and what your children have seen and learned is incredible!!

Thanks for sharing! What kind of work do you do?
I have to say, it looks incredibly America in some of the picteres! Again,I wish we had parks like that! :)

Natalie said...

thewishfulwriter - i totally didn't care a bit about her hair color. and i have to do something to keep up my cool factor with my kids! hopefully letting her color her hair will last for a few good months!

stella - being away from extended family has probably been the hardest part, but we have met so many americans and many people from other countries as well who have become like family. we all pretty much have to depend on each other so my kids have lots of built in aunts and uncles!

my husband works for a company that provides consulting in several different areas...sports, business, and tourism.

Mike S said...

Don't you just savor those few moments when you're actually ahead of the 'fad curve'? Their hair is pretty nice by the way, way nicer than most I've seen(one of ours went through a 'purple' stage):)

Natalie said...

mike - yeah...i thought her hair looked pretty cute!