Haircut

Lillian’s hair is growing quickly; after her dad drops her off in the morning, her Yia-Yia has been brushing it and putting in bands and barrettes in an attempt to control it. These stay in for as long as 20 minutes after Yia-Yia leaves in the morning, and grandpa is completely hopeless at doing anything about it.

So, Yia-Yia took Lillian this afternoon to the beauty parlor and got her hair trimmed.

Lillian viewed the entire process with deep suspicion.

Hair in the Sun

A year ago, Lillian still didn’t have much hair. Now, she does.

When she is up on the climbing decks at the playground, she is pretty sure that something interesting is going on underneath, so she lies down and looks through the holes in the decking. Sometimes, she pretends to sleep and snore. It’s a pretty convincing snore, and she’ll check from time to time to see if she’s got you fooled, and she’ll laugh whether she does or not.

One of her favorite tv shows is “Ni hao, Kai-Lan”, which features a girl named Kai-Lan and her friends, and teaches the odd word in Mandarin: Lillian knows “Ni hao”, which means “hello” and “xie xie”, which means “thank you”. (She may know a few other words, but I don’t). When you hand her something tasty like a fruit snack, she often says “xie xie”.

Today in the sandpit at the park, she went over to help a girl about her own age and the girl’s mother, who was speaking to her daughter in Mandarin. Lillian gave them a shovel and a bucket to use. They all played happily, and a little while later, the girl’s mom handed the shovel back to Lillian. “Xie xie,” said Lillian, and the girl’s mom’s mouth dropped open and she almost fell over. She turned to me and started speaking to me in Mandarin. I could only smile and shrug, knowing even less Mandarin than my two year old grand daughter.

Hair with Yia-Yia

Lillian’s Yia-Yia Nancy was off for Good Friday, so she and Lillian enjoyed themselves doing things to Lillian’s hair and re-applying the sparkle to Lillian’s nails — the sorts of things that baffle fathers and grandfathers. They spent most of the day out in the backyard and blew bubbles and spun around until they were dizzy and climbed on things and drew chalk pictures on the pavement and talked and talked the whole day through (although talking with Lillian is pretty easy as she does most of the work).

Her dad came and got her in the afternoon; then she’s off with her aunts Cari and Sylvia to their country place up near Cleveland (Texas) where she’ll spend the night and show off her language skills to a new audience.

Rabbits and Hairy Arms

There’s a little plaster statue of a rabbit in the backyard that’s made an appearance or two before in this blog. For some reason Lillian loves that rabbit. He’s lost part of a leg and all of an ear and most of his paint, but Lilz carries him around as if he was warm and soft and furry.

When she isn’t taking care of old garden statuary, she’s busy studying her surroundings and offering commentary. As I sat out in the sun, she walked over, ran her hands up and down my arm and said: “Very hairy,” then ran off to chase squirrels.

Not a bad first day of spring, all in all.

A Bow in her Hair

Lauren drove Nancy and Lillian around to do some errands yesterday, and they went and had lunch with Lillian’s uncle Richard. Nancy got a yellow bow and put it in Lilz’s hair. Lilz spent the rest of the day pointing it out to those lacking in fashion sense (dads and granddads, particularly) and explaining “it’s a bow!”

Lillian and Tails

Thanks, mom!

There are certain things that excite mothers and grandmothers: one of those things is when their 21-month old girl finally has enough hair for them to start teasing it into twists and tails.