A Brand New Brenna

One thing you should know about Brenna is that she likes be in control.

For example:  She likes bananas.  For snack, I may offer her a banana.  However, simply for the fact that I chose the banana, she will refuse it and demand something else.

I let her make all the small decisions in her life - what she wears, what bedtime stories we read, what cartoon we watch in the morning, etc.  I also let her decide how to style her hair.

As her hair has grown, I have begged her to pull it back or at least choose a barrette so that I can clip the bangs out of her face.  Between my mother and myself, Brenna has barrettes in every color, shape and size. 
Large (possibly obnoxious) pink bow?  Check.
Small barely noticeable butterfly?  Check.
Sparkles?  Check.
Rhinestones?  Check.

A lot of them she selected herself at the store.  She carried them around like precious gold and shrieked when she had to relinquish them for two seconds so the cashier could scan  them.  And then as soon as we got home, they were dropped, abandoned and forgotten.

Even if I distracted her enough to pull back her hair, once she noticed that it was pulled back against her will, she simply pulled it out.

So for the most part, Brenna's hair was always in her face.

She didn't seem to mind but it did cause some issues.

For example, their pre-school had a tea party.  All the kids were instructed to wear their "Sunday Best."  Then they sat at fold-out card tables, lined with a table cloth, and ate copious amounts of unapproved sugar. As you can see by that nicely folded, unused napkin, my kids fail at fine dining -

And as you can see, everything that went into Brenna's mouth also went into her hair:


The obvious solution was to cut her bangs.
To be honest, I am not sure why I did not think of this many weeks ago.

With a few clips of her scissors that she bought 30 years ago, my mother gave Brenna the only hair cut she knows how to do - uneven bangs.  I had the same hair cut when I was kid.

But just like that, Brenna could see out of both eyes.
And perhaps life looks better when you can see clearly because ever since, its as if she turned over a new leaf.

Some days, she has ZERO tantrums.  It almost scares me.

Just one example: she used to always throw a fit when getting confined into her car seat. She would scream and cry and wiggle and squirm until she was able to get an arm out. I would often have to pull over.


We haven't had to pull over once since the hair cut.


Coincidence? Perhaps.
Publishing this post can be the jinxing catalyst that flings us three steps back.

But at the very least she takes better photos because now you can always see her smile.

Pre-hair cut "Daddy-fun-time":


Post-hair cut "Daddy-fun-time":


She would never admit it, but she is thankful that we made this decision. And as she will learn over and over and over again, mom is usually right.