Baby hair.

I need some serious help. When I was pregnant with Caleb and found out he was a boy, my first and primary concern was that he would turn out to be a bully. With Cecily, as soon as I found out she was a girl, I was consumed with anxiety about doing a little girl's hair. While my bullying concerns about Caleb have (thus far) turned out to be unfounded, I don't think I worried enough about Cecily's hair while she was in utero. Instead, I consoled myself with the mistaken notion that she, like her brother before her, would have little hair, and that it would rub off.

Such was not the case.

At first her hair was cute and kind of spiky.

But it soon started getting these matted knots in the back that I couldn't comb out and finally just started cutting out--on the order of one or two a week. For months. So her back hair? It looks pretty good now, after months of me cutting off pieces here and there.

See that matted hair knot in the back? That's the culprit.

Now her hair (on top) is definitely long enough for a pony tail, which I often give her.

Sometimes she's jaunty.

But I lack the basic coordination to do it fast and neat enough on the first try to let it stay, so she often has to go through three or four installations of the pony tail before we get one that's acceptable for public viewing--and even then, it's often not good.

Aren't we happy about a messy pony and the likelihood of being eaten by a dinosaur?

And then she pulls them out.

Proud of having removed her pony tail.

For the last couple of days, she's cried the minute I touch her head, so there haven't been any pony tails. Instead, her hair kind of just stands straight up or waves a little or has corkscrew curls or incorporates all three of those attractive styles, and she looks like a motherless ragamuffin. It's very sad.

Do you know how to do baby hair? Please save me from my clueless mother...

And, to top it off, she has a mullet, with the short sides of her hair being a lot lighter than the rest of her longer, darker hair.

Hair that would make a mohawk wearer's dreams come true.  

I'm afraid for her future.