OK, This Is Fucking Weird

OK, This Is Fucking Weird

Katie came up to me. "Daddy, do you like my new haircut?"

She'd just gone to get her hair cut. It was...uh....my girl's into punk rock now?

It was cut VERY short, and spiked. With half a Mohawk. It was shaved down the back of her head, but not the front.

Being a dream, it sorta didn;t even look like Katie at all. But did. Features not totally defined. Kinda vague there.

"Well, honey. I liked it myself a lot better before, but if that's how you want to do it, that's great. I'm glad you're trying new things."

But even though I felt that way, I kinda DIDN'T. And she could tell, I could see that she did. I like her hair the way it is. It's long and wavy and blonde and she's such a beautiful little girl in every way. I DIDN'T like it. It felt OFF somehow. But...I'm not the kind of parent who tries to control things about my child that aren't really for me to control, and I don't think that's something I should be trying to control.

I mean, hey, if she came to me and said "Daddy, do you like my new Smith & Wesson?" and I was suddenly looking down the barrel of a .357, yeah. I'd kinda be the loud "You can't do that!" parent. I think that one is sorta in my "parental control" area, ya know? But this was about a haircut, and I don't feel strongly about that.

Or do I?

I could see on her face that she knew what I was thinking. She's a perceptive kid, after all. Heck, MOST kids can read farther into what you're saying than we usually give them credit for. She came to me for approval. She got it, but she kinda didn't. Daddy says it's OK, but he doesn't really feel that way. She walked off, looking half satisfied, half not. Sorta the way I felt.

I think this dream (and oddly enough, I read on my ex's blog about an interesting dream she had just a few dsys ago) is trying to make sense of what kind of parent I want to be and how acceptiing I'll be of Katie's decisions as she grows up. And I feel strongly that even at not quite five years old, she should be allowed SOME decisions on her own. The older she gets, she should have more of them. I HATE watching parents try to control every fucking thing their kid does, when so much of it DOES NOT MATTER. Keep your kid safe, don't let them do anything too fucking stupid, but dammit, let 'em have SOME kind of freedom, for fuck's sake.

It was interesting to be feeling that stuff over this - a hairstyle. Something that really does not matter and I don't feel inclined to try to control. But I didn't like it. I liked the way she was before. I just had to let go of that and let her do what she wanted in that area, because it was the right thing for me to do.

It's gonna get a LOT more complicated than this in about ten years. Hair? That will be the LEAST of our issues. LOL.

I'm going to Cincy tomorrow, do some stuff around town and pick her up at daycare. We'll spend the evening together and I'll take her home, go over to Bill's for the night, then Saturday I'll get her first thing in the morning and bring her up here to Indy through Sunday. So we're getting more time than usual (and with Bill's new job, I might even end up just bringing her here Friday night) and I need that. I need all the time I can get with her. It's gonna be a LOT nicer outside, so we'll finally get to do some outdoors stuff again, which I'm really looking forward to.

But yeah, I hope she keeps her hair the way it is. :)

Dougie

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