Free Burrito with Haircut

I suggested she put on the little cape, which worked fine until Lily flung it over her head a few times so that she looked like a little black ghost and completely covered her head.  We made it past or through...and she settled down for about the last 1/3 of the hair cut. 

Well...if you're following along in the haircut process, yesterday I posted three styles I thought would look good for Lily.  They're here.  We ended up splitting the difference between Options 2 and 3, going not quite as short as 3, but not quite as long as 2.  It looks great.  Great job Leigh!

How YOU doin'

It started out a bit rough.  The things that Lily hates most about her hair...combing and clips were all things Leigh needed in order to get her hair cut.  Also..."I don't like rain" when she would spray her hair with the little spray bottle.

And even though she had already eaten her favorite McDonald's earlier that evening, I took her for a special treat after the haircut.  She wanted nuggets and fries.  I thought about getting her a four piece with a kids fry, but I didn't think it would be enough fries, so I just got her a six piece and a small fry.  Like an asshole.

She ate her nuggets like a champ and I pulled around McDonald's to Chipotle, because at that point I hadn't eaten anything yet and it was about 8:15.  Daddy deserved a little treat too.  I'd never taken Lily in to a place like that and gotten something for myself.  Sometimes I just don't want to worry about the fuss or stress.  But I was like...we can do this.  I need to challenge my comfort zone.  So I did.  Like an asshole.

At some point I noticed the woman in front of me kept turning around to look at Lily.  And I'm like...yeah, bitch, she's a princess, drink it in.  But I didn't say that, and instead I looked at Lily who was making the face of someone who wanted to throw up.  Possibly because her father overfed her like a kid with his first goldfish.

And then she settled down a bit, and it was my turn so I started to order, but I kept looking at Lily, because if she had to hurl...and so I kept having to say what every five seconds.

Slack jawed teenage girl (SJTG):  What would you like to order
Me:  Veggie Burrito (I was being so damned healthy too!)
SJTG:  White or brown rice
Me:  What?
SJTG:  White or brown rice
Me:  Oh...I want the lime cilantro rice
SJTG:  The lime cilantro rice comes in white or brown
Me:  What?  Oh...uh...white
SJTG:  Black or pinto beans
Me:  What?
SJTG:  Black or pinto beans
Me:  Uhhhh...black

And so on.

The woman behind me had now taken an interest, asking if Lily was choking and I told her no, that she'd eaten too much and was feeling a little sick.  I sat Lily down and divided my time between ordering and double-checking that Lily wasn't going to throw up in Chipotle as the woman behind me started barking orders at the SJTG behind the counter...Bag!  We need a bag!  No, not a paper bag, do you have a plastic bag!

And so on.

I'm along for the ride at this point.

"Sweetie, you need to put your hands up in the air if you're feeling like you're going to throw up, that will help."

That was about 25 words more than Lily wanted to process at once, and I'm like, "ma'am, she doesn't know what you mean, she's autistic."  And I cringe because I feel like I'm minimizing who Lily is, but I just want the nice lady to leave us alone so I can address the situation my own way. 

She begins taking all the things the SJTG is giving her and engineering some sort of double-contained barf bag apparatus like she's a fucking Apollo 13 astronaut, wrapping one bag inside the other and then turning it inside out or something and folding it at the sides...my attention was divided at this point.

"OH!  My NEPHEW is autistic."  She thrusts the Apollo 13 barf bag into my hands and says, "I'll pay for your order, you just take care of her."

 And I'm telling her it's really not necessary and thank you, but it's okay.

And SJTG is STILL asking me questions...guac? cream cheese? salsa?...and I'm responding "Yes, jesus, yes, all of it...put everything on the goddamn burrito (I didn't swear)...all of the things..."

Lily is now saying, "I have to go potty".  Son of a BITCH!  But...hey...cool points for self initiating.

NOW the nice lady behind me is practically pushing me out the door...I hear her telling SJTG repeatedly...I'll pay. I'll pay, just give him his order...

And she insists on paying for my burrito, and I thank her again as the cashier hands me my free burrito and I walk Lily to the back of the store, asking her if she wants to go home or go potty.  She never actually answered, so I ushered her into the car and drove home.

Lily was fine when we got home.  No throwing up.  Awesome haircut.  Free burrito.

Nailed it!  Thanks nice lady for helping!

Splitting Hairs

I've reached another one of those unpleasant autism-parent decision plateaus...where I have come to a realization that something I've been pushing with Lily, something that was really important to me, was in truth, only important to me.  Not to her. 

Lily is a beautiful girl and I love her long hair.  And Lily doesn't give a shit.  And I have fought against cutting it shorter for years and years and this morning, as she clenched her teeth in frustration, biting down hard on her sweatshirt in anger and screaming through the material, I realized that it's all been because of my desire that she have long hair, and not for any other reason.

Hair styling with Lily has become increasingly harder through the years, and lately when her mood declines she lashes out more and more vehemently...spitting, biting her hair or shirt, screaming NO!  kicking off her shoes, throwing her hair clip and glasses...and hair styling rapidly puts her mood in that sort of decline.

This morning, for probably the third time this week, I loaded Lily onto the bus with a warning to the bus aide to be careful...Lily is very frustrated this morning...then watched helplessly through the window as she attempted to snatch the glasses off the face of her bus aide and hurl them across the seats.  This morning the aide dodged back quickly, looking up at me beseechingly as if I had the power to do anything other than stand witness. 

She was pissed (Lily...but maybe the aide too), and me trying to put her hair in a pony to keep it out of her face is what put her in that place.  Once she's in that place it's probably ten to fifteen minutes of solid rage before she processes and settles back into the happy little Lily she usually is.  But I put her there.  Again.

During the morning routine I cut up her poptart and placed it on the table.  She wasn't sitting down at the time and I didn't really give it a second thought.  While I talked to Emma and Lily watched TV she eventually wandered over and sat down, popping a piece of poptart in her mouth before I noticed that her hair was in her mouth too. 

I pulled the long strands of hair out of her mouth (it doesn't really bother her that she's swallowed the hair with the poptart, I grabbed a napkin to attempt to strip the poptart goo off her hair.  I gathered it up and made a messy partial pony on top her head, trying to finish quickly before she started getting upset.

I made it.  It was later though, when I tried to straighten it up, brushing it back off her face neatly and gathering it in my fist to wrap and rewrap with the pony tail holder that she spiraled down, cratering into the place where she remained as I loaded her onto the bus. 

Not for the first time I thought...I guess I need to cut her hair. 

Those kinds of decisions are the hardest ones for me.  It's stupid really, because it's an easy decision...Lily hates her hair being styled.  I need to style her hair when it's long...cut her hair shorter.  But it comes at the end of a long battle to NOT cut her hair, so it makes pulling the trigger that much harder.  But it's done.

hmmm...

I'm going to contact the family hair dresser today via text with a few pictures to consider.

My requirements for Lily's haircut:

1)  cute (obvi...)
2)  stays out of her face without a clip or a pony
3)  doesn't require "styling/curling/etc" in order to look good
4)  won't get in her mouth if she bends over her food when eating. 

I was going to post a picture of Eleven from Stranger Things as my first cute haircut example, but I couldn't find one that was obviously marked as shareable.  Look her up.  Millie Bobby Brown...she shaved her head for the show.

The sight gag isn't nearly as funny without the sight part.

Anyway...it is purely coincidence that every single cut I found (and maybe one or two are the exact same) happen to be labeled "short haircuts for asian girls".  I had no idea they were so ethnocentric.

Here they are:

This is by far my favorite

This has some sort of weird unkemptness vibe that I probably won't be able to reproduce

On Lily the back of the hair will just hang straight down

This is probably my least favorite, and I can see her getting her hair in her food

What do you all think?  Leigh?