Claire Turned Fourteen Yesterday

Okay, so really she did not just turn fourteen. But, yesterday I did let her do something that I had previously told her she had to wait till she was fourteen to do. Now she is convinced that she is a teenager.

About four weeks ago, Claire woke Josh and I up with this question: "when can I have purple hair?"

What? I was groggy, sleepy, and confused. Not really thinking things through, I replied, "when you are fourteen."

Fourteen is not an age to Claire; it is merely a number. And it does not necessarily follow thirteen or precede fifteen, for that matter. Fourteen is simply sometime in the future.

Now, I may have already damaged her understanding of age, since I recently had her convinced that she was three, just to get her into the Ikea playroom. I suppose she thinks that her age can be changed to fit whichever circumstances we are put into.

Naturally Claire bugged us daily, no, hourly, about her purple hair. I must have hear the following questions/statements a zillion times in the past four weeks.

When am I going to be fourteen Mom?

When can I have purple hair Mom?

At Christmas I am going to be fourteen!

I get purple hair at Christmas!

I want purple hair Mom!

(looking in the mirror with a disappointed tone in her voice) Oh! My hair is not purple yet!

Mom, when can I get purple hair?

Perfect strangers and friends heard them too, as she told everybody she came in contact with about her purple hair desires. She even told Fr. Michael when she was venerating the cross on Sunday. Get the point? She was obsessed.

I gave in. Big time. I could not take the purple hair obsession for another 12 years! So, I ordered her purple hair spray. Levi, at this time, decided he wanted blue hair. Of course, I was too cheap to spend the extra money on faster shipping, so we waited, and waited, and waited for the delivery. You can only imagine the questions she came up with during those days.

Monday afternoon, when we came home from playgroup, there were two packages on our stairs. One from Grandma Ann, and the other contained, as Claire said, purple hair.

In my defense, I tried to make them eat lunch before we sprayed their hair, but they were just too excited and the excessive talking was getting to me again. So, once again, I gave in.

The results are quite good I have to say. And the color washes out with shampoo, so we can have purple hair anytime we want!

**Special note to Grandma Ann**

Right after we did Claire's hair, she took off her dress and demanded that I put on her "purple dress Grandma Ann made me."