Vanity!

One of Lucy's best friends is a sweet little girl with a head full of very very curly (and gorgeous) blond hair.  This little girl, of course, does not like the constant commenting on her hair.  And, of course, Lucy has become decidedly jealous of it.  She has repeatedly made comments about wishing she had hair like K.'s and that she doesn't like her own hair.  

Enter mommy guilt:  I have clearly done something wrong if Lucy is THAT concerned with how her hair looks verses her how her friends hair looks.  

Anyway....she has been begging me to curl it.  Finally the other night, at the recommendation of a friend, I twisted her hair up into a bunch of mini buns.  This was the result in the morning:

It actually looked better than the picture indicates.  And she seemed to love the results.  There are two problems, though.  One is that it took forever for me to do this -- we just can't make this a part of our nightly routine.  The other is that I want her to be happy with the head of hair she was given.  And, really, a third problem is that I don't want to tell her how to do her hair.  If she wants to curl her hair, then that should be her choice.  And if she wants to color it (some very far off day down the road), then she should be able to do that to.  It ticks me off when someone (anyone) tries to tell me that I should or should not be doing something with my appearance.  Darn it, it is my body, so butt out!

And then all this comes back to what I started with.  The little girl with curly hair doesn't appreciate the constant commenting, but it also effects the other kids.  The other kids hear, in the silence, you aren't pretty and aren't good enough to merit notice.  Just something to think about.  I know people are well intentioned, but commenting on little girls appearances constantly leaves them thinking about their appearances constantly.  (And I am sometimes guilty of this, too, for the record.)

So, I sit here trying to figure out how to balance teaching Lucy that she is beautiful the way she is, but that it is also okay to take pride in her appearance (which means she can wear her clothes and hair in a way that make her happy and comfortable).  I've yet to come up with a good solution.