A weekend of Joy

If you know anything about my Serena, you know she loves her long hair, with a passion. And her favorite way to wear it is down, well technically it's curled at the bottoms, but she only gets that on special occasions. Well, being her hair was 5 bazillion feet long, the ends were starting to get rough, and split, and tangly she AGREED to get a trim. I was thinking we'd fight over every 1/2 inch that I wanted to cut, but she volunteered for 4 inches, which was exactly how much she needed, so great we were set.

Now all her previous haircuts were done by yours truly, because she was young, and if it wasn't quite even, well she wasn't old enough to notice or care. But now she's 8, and she does notice those kinds of things, so we finally took her to get it done. At first she was thrilled, then she got anxious, and when we got there she got all antsy. She saw a little girl getting mountains of hair chopped off (I guess she had neglected to brush her hair well enough for a while and yikes, it was a MESS) so she reminded me once again that she was only getting a trim.

When it was finally her turn she asked me to go back with her, and since it wasn't busy I got to simply sit in the chair next to her and talk to her while she got it done. What a joy to sit by her, because she sat there looking at herself in the mirror, making faces (not silly faces, but her photo pose faces), and laughing about her hair being clipped to the top of her head as the bottom layer was cut.

After all was said and done she had a healthy head of still very long hair. As we left, she walked swishing it back and forth and relishing in her dad fawning over how beautiful she looked. Only then it got to her head and as we walked by a car someone glanced at her, she said " I look so good everyone's eyes are buggin out of their heads!" I think previously the weight of her hair had kept her head from inflating, and after that trim it was free to grow.

I am so glad she felt beautiful, but then I had to try to explain humility to her. Everyone always tells her how beautiful she is, which is wonderful, all women want to feel beautiful, but I don't need her growing up thinking her beauty is her identity or grow up to be vain and conceited. BUT all in all, it was a fun experience.

Then Sunday she and Daddy joined a bowling league. The teams are all two people, a junior and a parent. I thought it was all small kids, but I guess it's actually anyone under the age of 18. Serena is the youngest, and the lady running the league had to get everyones permission to let Serena use bumpers. Which worried me until Serena's enthusiastic "YES!" for her 2 and 3 pin frames had everyone cheering her on by the end. The smallest ball they have there almost pulls her down the lane with it, but she loved it. She just loved it. Daddy daughter time was great. And Chloe sat there cheering, loudly, "Go Se-ya, Go Se-ya!" Even Pappa joined in the festivities and came and watched and cheered on his eldest granddaughter.

Then to top it off, we took Chloe to preschool soccer yesterday, and Serena got to run around the park with the other older siblings, and I watched with a big grin on my face as I recalled my days running around my brothers little games making friends with any other girl there, never watching a single game (even when I was the score keeper, oops) but having a blast nonetheless. As we were pulling out of the parking lot, she said "I never thought Chloe's soccer could be so much fun!"

The continuous smile on Serena's face this weekend did my heart well, I love watching her enjoy life with all of her heart.