Zoë's big haircut

Since the pool closed, it feels like we simply never leave the house anymore. I keep meaning to take the kids to the park at least, but by the time they finish their schoolwork I'm more than happy to let them run loose while I work on my schoolwork and so...we just never seem to leave the house. 

My mom pointed out that they're probably just fine. We don't live in an apartment; we have a house with a big yard situated on a quiet cul-de-sac. They've been outside to play on the play set and jump on the trampoline and ride their bikes and play soccer and jump rope...but, still...we feel a little bit like we've been cooped up since September.

Cue the end of daylight savings time.

Now it's difficult to even get out for our traditional post-prandial stroll. This is a long-standing tradition in our house, whether I am pregnant and diabetic or not, but it becomes more important when I am pregnant and diabetic. When I'm not pregnant and diabetic, we get to our walk eventually. When I am pregnant and diabetic we rush through our after-dinner chores, clearing the table and sweeping the floor as fast as we can so we can get out the door with enough time for me to get a good walk in and have some rest time before I have to check my blood sugar.

It's a delicate balance between exercising too much and accidentally raising my blood sugar and exercising too little and...anyway. 

We even have a rallying cry this time—a lusty cheer, "For Phoebe!" is often chorused by the children after anyone mentions that we need to go for our evening walk.

But now it's dark by the time we're finished with dinner. It's only been two days, I get that, and I really shouldn't gripe because I grew up much farther north where the sun sets much earlier than it does here. But still. It's awful.

To paraphrase my friend Kiristen, "How do I need the sun at 7:02 am in a way that I no longer need it at 5:37 pm?" 

It makes no logical sense.

Yesterday we went for a short walk in the dark, so today I was determined to take the kids to the park so that we could take a decent walk there and a short stroll after dinner. And we made it! We got to the park. It helps that I only have two final projects left to complete...so I felt like I cold take a little break from schoolwork...but we made it out of the house!

I don't have any pictures from our outing, but we made it out of the house!

Of course, as I was looking back to check that all the kids were buckled properly I noticed Zoë's hair. She looked like a juvenile werewolf!

She loves having long hair, loves the idea of being Rapunzel or a mermaid with long, flowing locks. She's reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire right now and is determined to be Fleur Delacour for Halloween next year because she has long blonde hair (and is half Veela, you know)! Zoë loves to have her hair curled and braided and done up all fancily. 

However, Zoë does not always enjoy brushing her hair. And today was one of those days. It was a mess! So I sent Miriam scurrying back inside for a brush and a hair elastic and then we left for the park. 

Over dinner we convinced Zoë that we should cut her beautiful hair. That way it will have plenty of time to grow out in order to be Fleur Delacour for Halloween next year, but it will grow with more volume (she still has wispy-thin baby hair, especially at the ends because I've been so against cutting it since that one time Benjamin did).

In the end Zoë was quite excited about things. So after our post-dinner stroll, I cut Zoë's hair.

Here's her before picture:

 

I took off ten inches!

And then evened it out a bit:

Cutting her hair is so much easier than cutting Miriam's hair has ever been. When I cut Miriam's hair I have to put it into several ponytails and hack through them one by one and it takes ages to get her hair thinned and even. Zoë's hair is so sparse that all it took was a couple snips of my scissors and we were finished!

Here she is after showering and jamming, showing off her dear, departed ponytail one last time:

Now perhaps she'll brush her hair in the morning.

(Okay, fat chance of that happening without being nagged. But at least when she leaves it until the last minute it will be a quick task rather than twenty minutes of careful detangling...)

She's cute with it short and cute with it long!