That Time I Killed Her Curls

Once long ago in a suburb of Los Angeles, an eight year old girl tried to help her mother by giving her younger sister a bath.  Her mother was a busy, single mom and there were never enough hours in the day, so the young girl took it upon herself to not only initiate bathtime, but to make sure that her younger sister (3-4 years old) got bathed too.

Of course, I was that young girl and now, years later, I know that I wasn’t helping my mother at all.  It was even hard for me to type the word “help” in that first sentence.  Make no mistake, as an 8 year old helping was my very intention, but the definition of “help” to an 8 year old is very different than, um, anyone else.  And now that I have a little helper at home, I know how hard I cringe when Greenleigh announces that she’s “helped” me.  Especially when the help is completely and totally unsolicited.  It normally takes everything I have in me to take a deep breath and try to remember her intentions as I walk in to find the mess that she’s made.  And as I help her clean it up, I mutter under my breath how much I love that kid because sometimes I need to remind myself.  But I digress…

Bathtime was over and the young girl was feeling a great sense of accomplishment as she stood blow drying her little sister’s hair…until her mother walked in and screamed, “What did you do!  Where are her curls?”.  In fairness, the “What did you do?” probably had more to do with the flood and chaos that existed in the bathroom where bathtime had just taken place, but the question about the curls was directly lodged at me who had a brush and blow dryer in her hands.   You see, growing up my sister had these beautiful blonde ringlets.  It was a crown of curls that surrounded her head in an almost angelic fashion.  And at the time that I was blow drying her hair, the curls were (admittedly) not there.

My mother was so upset distraught over the missing curls that she actually had my sister get back into the bath, re-washed her hair, and proceeded to dry it only the way that my mother knew how.  But alas, the curls were gone.  And, with the exception of those crazy perms that we got in the early 1990’s, my sister never got her curls back.  I had single-handedly killed my sister’s curls.  I was pretty sure that my mom had never forgiven me until I reminded her of this story about a year ago and she claimed to remember nothing about that day or me having anything to do with my sister’s curls disappearing.

Fast forward twenty-something years later to last Friday as we were getting the girls ready for school.  Since Erajh and I were both home that morning, we decided to give the girls baths so we could avoid doing it during the nighttime rush.  Hazeline had a terrible cough, so it was my goal to get her in and out of the bath and dry as soon as possible.  Although I normally skip the dryer for Hazeline’s short hair (that normally dries itself in no time), I decided we just couldn’t risk it – better to get her completely dry.  I was busy blow drying her hair when Erajh looked at me and said, “What did you do to her curls?  You broke them!“.  Not realizing what I had done, I looked down at her head, and sure enough – straight hair.Yep, I killed her curls.Lucky for me, my mom wasn’t there, no re-washing was necessary, and within a couple hours tiny ringlets started to form at the nape of her neck (under her straight hair) – if this resilience keeps up, she’s going to need one hell of a flat iron in high school.  But rest assured, people noticed.  “Why does she have straight hair?,” they asked, “Where’s her little head of curls?”.  For which I had no answer.  Other than the fact that I had killed them, that is.

I’m adding “Curl Killer” to my resume.  Should be a real conversation starter.