Day 14 - Hair

Have you ever given much thought to your hair color?  Many of you probably have.  I used to, more than I do now.  I've heard my hair color described in several different ways: dark blond, light brown, dishwater blond (just what everyone wants to hear), etc.  The color used to bother me...maybe because of the dishwater comment.

When I was little, my hair was very light blond, almost white.  As I got older it continued to darken.  When I was in middle school and high school I used to lighten my hair during the summertime.  In college, I even tried dying it a strawberry blond.  More recently, I have thought about getting highlights.  However, it always seems like a lot of work to maintain and I just don't have time to put a lot of work into my hair.  Maybe, more likely, I don't make a lot of time to put into my hair.

Yesterday, my daughter was snuggled up on my lap as we read together and I was noticing that her hair is getting darker all the time.  She started out with very light blond hair and it's getting darker over time, just as mine did.  I began to notice that the underside of her hair was almost exactly the same color as mine.  I took a small section of her hair and wrapped it around my finger, and then took a small section of my own hair and wrapped it around the same finger.  I couldn't tell where her hair ended and mine began.

It started me thinking.  I have always thought that it was cool that my hair, if you look at it closely, is made up of a mix of several different colors.  If you look at it strand by strand, you will find my mom's very dark brown hair.  It even feels more course than the rest.  Of course, it's just a few strands here and there so it doesn't really stand out in my head of mostly fine hair.  Next, you will also find red hair.  There are more of these strands in there.  They are very fine and very red.  The red strands come from my dad.  His hair was very fine and very red.  Finally, there are different shades that fall somewhere in between.  There are very light blond, medium blond, and dark blond/light brown.  I have decided that the blond ones are mine alone.  These are the ones that didn't come from my mom or my dad, they are just me.

I think it's pretty amazing to look into my daughter's hair now and see similar colors.  There are the dark brown course strands from my mom, fine red strands from my dad, dark blond strands from me, and brown strands from my husband. 

As I sat running my daughter's hair through my fingers I began to wonder what she might see someday as she looks at her own child's hair.  Will she see my parent's color in there still?  Will it be frizzy like her other grandparent's hair?  Will she pick out her parent's colors in there like I do? 

Time will tell.