Lice

As I gleefully took the clippers from beneath the bathroom sink outside to Tom who was showing Olivia the cute red chair he'd brought out for her to sit in for her haircut, it never occured to me that the cut we were about to give her would cause people to think she'd had lice. LICE?! Holy crap, no. She didn't have lice.

I would like to thank one of my dearest friends, the lovely Mandy (aka Amanda) for pointing out that she'd have feared that very thing were she comtemplating giving her child such a haircut.

See, Olivia has been pulling the left side of her hair out for, oh, about two years.

She sucks her right thumb and pulls at her hair with her left hand.

I think it's more a habit than a compulsion, so I'm hesitant to call it trichotillomania. She's never been diagnosed as having that compulsion. Then again, we've never taken her to anyone who would diagnos such a thing.

So we cut her hair. Short. As in it's 1/4 of an inch in length all over her head. See the above picture.

She's still adorable, right? Sure, a bit on the boyish side, but still awfully sweet.

And she has all summer to let it grow back evenly. I hope.

Whenever I do anything with Alyssa's hair, Olivia demands that I do the same with hers. Except...Alyssa's hair is to the middle of her back. There are lots of options. Olivia's? Not so many options. And since Monday? None. But she's three, she doesn't seem to mind the shortness of her hair. In fact, she probably appreciates that she doesn't have to get it washed as often as her sister has to have her washed and that brushing thing? She's so over it.