Harper story

Harper's hair, as you may or may not have noticed, is rather unruly.  It's getting long, it's baby-fine, it's curly in some spots and straight in others (unless we're on the east coast and then it's all curls thanks to the humidity- gosh, another reason to move back!!) and if I don't do anything to it she kind of looks like a mad scientist.  I genuinely try to fix it whenever I can, we have a collection of bows and headbands that rival any of the other girls in our playgroup.  However, while many of Harper's friends are content to become engrossed in an episode of "Dora the Explorer" while mommy fixes their hair, that is not my child. Sitting still and succumbing to distractions are not part of her make up.

This morning we had our typical game- me trying to sneak a bow in her hair, her pulling it out in half a second and trying to put it in my hair, repeat, repeat.  A new addition to our game is a word that she clearly understands now: No.  She chants "no" the entire time during our game. So I broke everything I thought I would believe in about how to speak to a female child and tried to explain to her that she would look "pretty" and "don't you want to look pretty, Harper?"  No, Harper didn't want to look pretty so I took my mad scientist out in public and got over it.  Later we had a visitor at our house: yet another person to give us an estimate on blinds, which are still missing from our house and the reason why Harper has bath towels hung over her window to block out the light.  Harper and I answered the door and the woman immediately exclaimed to Harper, "what a pretty girl you are!" and Harper immediately reached for her hair to feel for a bow and started her "no:" chant. At the moment in Harper's world, pretty= bow in her hair and she wants nothing to do with it.