The Hair Sacrifice

I went and got the “new baby haircut” the other day.

No, I don’t have a baby. The haircut was for me. But it was just the latest in a series of “cave-ins” to adapt to the new reality of being a single mother to a new puppy.

I haven’t been prone to too many radical changes in hair styles over the years. I’ve gone from short to a little longer, or a little shorter, or from shoulder length to a little shorter. Hair color has been an entirely different story. But actual, dramatic cleaving of hair-length has been reserved for some truly life-altering events.

When my oldest daughter was born twenty-odd years ago, I’d had long hair a few inches past my shoulders. I saw no reason to change that look…until she was six months old and started pulling herself up to a sitting position by seizing handfuls of my brunette locks. Off I went to the salon, and got a short and shaggy “do” that lasted many years, give or take an inch or two when the weather turned cold.

A decade and a half later, I had a toddler, a new puppy, and a marriage finally showing its stress fractures. I wanted to streamline. That, and it was summer, and I was tired of brushing sweaty hair out of my eyes whenever I bent over to pick up the kid or the dog. Off to the salon I went again, and came home with a short “pixie” cut that left the longest hair on my head about an inch and a half long. It was very edgy and “in your face,” with a touch of Joan of Arc style. Hers might have been longer.

My husband’s office was just a few miles away in town, and he was in the habit of coming home for lunch. He walked into the kitchen that day as I was washing dishes at the sink, and I could tell by his footsteps pacing behind me that he was stunned and cautiously circling what clearly was an unfamiliar and unpredictable entity. Had I come home with my head shaved, I don’t think he would have been more startled. Or wary.

That look lasted a few years, until I decided I was done with the hassle of wearing my contact lenses and went back to a softer silhouette to offset my glasses.

Fast forward to the present. I’ve been enjoying having longer hair once again, even if it meant spending extra time with the blow dryer and pulling out the hot rollers every other day. The payoff was great. I walked past my certain fella a few months ago while we were watching a DVD, to put the dinner plates in the kitchen. It was summer, and I was in some kind of fluttery sundress. When I walked back into the TV room he had a dazed smile on his face.

“What?” I asked. “Oh,” he replied. “I was just looking at you…with the dress…and the long hair…WOW.”

Trust me, to give up the long hair right now after a moment like that was asking a lot.

But four weeks with Lucky has brought out my practical, compromising side with a vengeance. In military parlance, it’s called “capitulation.” Or “surrender.” I’ve made peace with working at the kitchen counter on my laptop via a new wireless router that took me five days to install. I’ve brought back the custom-made, matches-the-wood-railings baby gate for the top of the main stairs that had been retired from use fifteen years ago when my youngest child learned to safely navigate stairs. I’ve sacrificed my fake bunny-fur bedroom slippers as decoys for my red suede high heels, and moved the cat’s food and water to a high shelf in the basement so that he can dine unmolested.

And for the foreseeable future, since this pup’s teething stage closely resembles a canine version of “Pac-Man,” to keep him from gnawing the furniture (or the cat) while I’m out of the room, I bring him with me into the bathroom. For showers, makeup, hair, the whole nine yards. All that’s needed is to toss his favorite squeaky rubber chicken or squeaky fluffy bone on to the bathmat two feet ahead of him, and he pounces in like a coyote on a fieldmouse, to then be held mournfully captive until I’m ready to face the world and say “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille.”

But after four weeks of puppy howls (at first) while I showered, and then baleful puppy stares while I worked my magic with blow dryer and hot rollers, I gave up on the hair. Okay, that and the fact that while I stood there putting the rollers in and trying not to burn my fingers, he liked to try to lick the moisturizer off my ankles. Really, what woman my age even uses hot rollers, I asked myself as I drove off to the salon with steely determination yet again. I emerged several hours later with a new color, a new set of highlights, and a “wash and go” short style that should free up more time in the morning to toss a tennis ball down the driveway in a fruitless quest to wear this little guy out. What I spent would have bought a lot of Milkbones. When you’re a new mother, you do what you gotta do.

By the way, Lucky got his first official bath a few days ago. I’d bought him his very own bottle of two-in-one shampoo plus conditioner, and when he’d dried off, I noticed that his fur was looking a little more curly, and a little longer. No doubt about it, a lustrous glossy coat is starting to come in. There are the beginnings of “feathers” on the back of his hind legs, his tail is looking fuller when he wags it, and the fur on his back is starting to get some serious wave action.

In another six months, I’m pretty sure his hair will be longer than mine. Whoever said motherhood was fair?