She left a brunette…now she’s Japanese Anime!

So, Cha really knows how to end the year with a bang. She never was the “wink and a smile” kind of girl. We knew this about her going in.

Clint and I have this thing about our kids…they are OURS. That means, you need permission to do things to them, specifically when it comes to altering their appearance. Yes, I know, it is kind of a controlling way to stamp your will on another being. It’s called parenting, damnit.

We sent Cha to Mimi’s house on Sunday. I had mentioned a TRIM and that Cha really wanted blue highlights in her hair. Let me get it on record that I get a lot of flack about Cha’s hair. I started letting her have blond highlights when she was about 8. All the moms gave me a hard time because they didn’t want their own kids to have high lights, and all their kids bitched and said, “Chandler’s Mom lets her!” Well, Chandler’s grandma is a hairdresser and it is free. Plus, Clint likes it.

So I tell Mimi that Cha really want blue highlights. I also go on the record, in front of everyone, that I do not approve of chunky – just a few blue highlights peeking out.

When I picked her up, she had JET BLACK HAIR.

My first reaction was “Hey, that’s cool!” I am still a mom, and I knew if freaked out on her, it would have been a scene, and one that included my mom-in-law. Admittedly, she was worried. But, she is a dear heart, who is kind of scared of me, and I didn’t want her to think I was angry with her.

Clint, however, doesn’t give a shit. He was, and is, incensed over this. I literally begged him not to say anything to his mom, which he did the first second he could.

Clint and I are upset on a few different issues. I am not mad and Mom or Cha. I just wish it didn’t happen. I wish her hair was brown with blue, like I asked. It makes her look older to me, and more sullen, which I hate. There is an edge to her now, that I don’t feel an 11 year old needs.

Clint is upset because 1) She didn’t ask. This is a HUGE change. He contends that if he had come home when he was 11 and had died his whole head of hair a different color, his parents would have flipped out. 2) His mother went against something he said. Okay, do I have to explain? We all freak out at our parents.  3) She looks more Asian.

Yes, you read right. But you have to understand what he means. She looks less like him…and let’s face it folks, she doesn’t much look like him to begin with. Finn, to most people, is the spitting image of Clint, just brown. But Cha – well, that kid is a mini-me, and there isn’t much of her dad in there! So it isn’t that he doesn’t like Asians – of course he does, he married one – but he liked it better when she had lighter hair.

So, now I have to spend all Christmas with my Goth-Kid’s blue black hair in all the photos and it is making me cringe. If she pulls this shit again, I will kill her!

She’s loud

We were in Albertson’s the other day, and maybe because I am sick and my ears are quite sensitive as of late, but seriously, Cha is loud. She can be doing something as simple as asking for a can of Spaghettio’s and her voice will carry through the aisles, down into the frozen foods, melting ice as it goes.

And it isn’t just in the grocery store, her loudness extends into every facet of our lives: the kitchen in the mornings, the car – a particularly sore spot for Cha’s Dad, who doesn’t understand why her voice reaches the front seat when we specifically bought the BIGGEST car on the market, and of course, the soccer field.

One of the little girls on a younger team Clint' coaches said, “Man, Miss Lindy, Chandler talks fast…and she is LOUD.” Like I didn’t know this? I said, somewhat rhetorically, “I talk fast, but am I loud?”