After five years of fighting with my youngest daughter's unruly hair, I finally got her to cut it. We went from this:

to this:

Can I just say... whew!

Now that my five-year-old looks like a child instead of a feral animal, we've been having a blast watching her primp and preen. I don't know where she gets it. Oh wait....

My husband delights in messing with the kids' heads, which, I'll admit, has some delightfully funny results. When he arrived home from work, he greeted the other two kids, and feigned astonishment that we had somehow replaced our daughter with this glamorous stranger.

My kid was standing there beaming at her father. She bent her elbow, flexed her wrist backwards and pushed up gently on the capped-under hair under her ear in the universal gesture for OMG do you LOVE it? Smirking, she turned her head this way and that, dimpling away at her clueless father.

Finally, exasperated by his refusal to accept that she was his own daughter, she spun around and waggled her little butt at him, bent arms chugging away at her sides.

"Oh!" he said.

"I thought you'd recognize my dance," she said.

It really is a dead-giveaway, now that she mentioned it.

___________________________________________________

Hey, before I forget, I've got a couple of reviews up at Three Kid Circus Auditions that you should check out! Relish! - a menu planning service is up from the Parent Bloggers Network, and the Senseo coffee maker - with bonus coupons and a chance to get your own.