Hairy ordeal

Rachel is a pretty hairy baby. She gets that from me, we think, although she seems to have slightly more hair than I did. We shall never really know though since mine wasn't measured. Everyone remembered me as a bald baby, but I so had hair--unless the baby in my baby book isn't me...

Me, in all my glory (note the hair)
Rachel, in all of hers

When people first meet Rachel they usually exclaim, "Look at all that hair!" and then they touch it because, let's face it, baby hair is one of the softest textures known to man. Rachel's hair is 1.5 inches long today. That happens to be over an inch longer than her dad's hair and he's already complaining about needing another haircut. I like him just the same with or without hair, but I really prefer his looks with hair--he just looks older when he combs and gels his hair, and by "older" I mean "not 14."

In fact, Rachel's hair is so long that we can put real barrettes in already. I still used corn syrup on this barrette because it kept sliding out of her hair, but that's because it's one of my barrettes and my hair is just a little thicker than Rachel's.


Oh, but the best part about being a hairy baby is her ear hair. Just like me, Rachel has hairy troll ears. I measured her ear hair today (no, it hasn't fallen off yet...yes, mine has) and it is half an inch long. When the Slades visited, we pointed out her ear hair to them and the up-coming Dr. Slade said, "Ah, yes, all babies have hairy ears," at which point he looked at her ear hair and exclaimed something like, "Holy cow! She has hairy ears!" We just bought some little barrettes for Rachel's hair today and I really think that we could clip them to her ear hair.


Her hair certainly is cute, but it does present some problems. The main one being that Rachel will innocuously raise her hand, rest it on her head, and close her fingers around a big fistful of hair. She will then decide that, perhaps, she will lower her hand in a jerky, uncontrolled fashion without opening her fingers. This produces a pitiful, yet blood curdling, plea for assistance. By the time I reach her (usually 1-5 seconds later) she is so frustrated that she is clenching both of her fists as tight as she can while trying to pull them close to her chest in the fetal position. I, then, have to pry her fingers apart while trying not to increase the force of her pull. I'm sure once she gains a greater sense of her movements she will realize that she can just let go of her hair herself.