Locks of Love

This is my Kilee on her 6th birthday last June. Notice the long blonde hair. (Why is blonde sometimes spelled with an "e" and sometimes not?) Please do not notice the sweet little neighbor girl with her dress pulled up. If I were any good with a camera or picture software, I would know how to edit that out. But I'm no good and I'm waiting for Vicki to buy Photoshop and figure it all out and then teach me. When that happens, I'll edit my photos. Until then, please ignore the sweet neighbor girl.

Kilee has been letting her hair grow for quite some time. I can't remember, exactly, when we started just letting it grow, but I do remember when we decided to cut it.

Last March, one of Kilee's friends, Behle, cut off her beautiful long brown hair. But Behle didn't just let it fall to the floor in a pile of discarded hair. Behle put it in a pony tail and then Jenn, her stylist, literally chopped her hair off above the rubber band. Then Behle's mom sent the beautiful pony tail of hair off to Locks of Love. Locks of Love is a not-for profit organization that provides hair pieces to disadvantaged children suffering from long-term medical hair loss. It takes six pony tails to make one wig.

We let her hair grow until we had ten inches to cut off. Then off to the stylist we went. One last look at the pretty hair that I loved to braid. Kilee didn't hesitate. One pony tail and some serious chopping through the hair and wa-la! One sixth of a wig for a disadvantaged child in need of hair.

And now, cute, short hair that requires a lot less shampoo and conditioner, dries twice as fast, and she can fix herself. Keeping it short? Nah. This mom misses the braids.