Clara's Hair

When Clara was born, she had a medium amount of hair, and it looked reddish.  In retrospect, it might just have been that her scalp was red from getting squished during birth.  Like all newborns' hair, it soon fell out.  As an infant, she had a male-pattern baldness look that matched Popi Shifrin's (or, if you prefer, as my brother John did, Marlon Brando's).

In late infancy, Clara's hair really took off.  She smeared yogurt and ketchup into it until it stuck out in all directions: it was modern art.  We stood out on the patio in the wind and rain: it developed its own atmospheric pressure.  She played in the dirt: it grew its own ecosystem.

I myself have a ton of hair.  I've only just gotten a grasp on how to subdue it.  Now I'm in charge of wrangling Clara's locks into submission every day.  It's very fine, so it tangles easily.  She is still a baby, so she doesn't understand about sitting still for very long.  If she could sit still, I would put it into two french braids, every day.  It would keep it cleaner for longer, and keep it from tangling.

For a while, I tried putting it into pigtails.  I'd get her to be still for the few seconds it took to put the rubber band in by whispering breathily, "Oh, you're going to be so pretty!"  And she would tilt her head a bit and flutter her eyelashes, and flash me a smile full of pearly baby teeth.  Two minutes later, the pigtails would be out. Once her pigtails are out, her hair does this weird thing where it kind of stays in the pigtail shape.  Kind of, but not totally.  It looks like wings.

Clara has two main hairstyles:  if it's rainy outside, and it's been awhile since I washed it, her hair curls in ringlets at the base of her neck.  I like to twine the curls around my finger when I'm holding her on my lap.  The morning after a wash, however, her hair is very Donald Trump.  I'm fearful, when I take Clara to the store on Donald Trump days.  I'm fearful that people will say, "Why doesn't that woman do something about her poor baby's hair?!"