Okay the next few days I will be playing catch-up on my blog, because it’s been a long time. Waaaaaay too long, I know. But what can I say? I’m a busy mama.

So first I will start off by telling you all about my #8 Andrew and how over the summer he went from age 10 to age 11 and just like that he’s a preteen now!

For weeks prior to his birthday he had been asking to get his hair highlighted, and I was all, “No, don’t mess with your natural hair color” because I’ve been conditioned at a young age to automatically go there in my thought process when it comes to dying hair. But then I gave it more thought and realized I was being silly because my boys all keep their hair short, and they can grow out a bad haircut in a few weeks, so damaging their hair for long-term due to hair dye just isn’t going to happen. I told Andrew that for his 11th birthday I will take him into a REAL salon so that he can get it done professionally. Because yeah, I can do many things, but I’m no hair stylist.

So off to the salon he went!

I requested a male hair stylist so that Andrew would feel less awkward about being in a room that is 97% filled with women of all ages getting their hair cut & colored. But even with a dude cutting his hair, I still think the place got to him a bit, especially when he started getting the highlight application put on. Hair clips and tin foil? I bet he was thankful that no school friends or players from his soccer team could see him.

Once the highlights were done, the dude hairstylist started blow drying Andrew’s hair, and I didn’t want to be a negative nellie about it but my first thought was damn, that’s some BIG hair!

I’ll be honest. I did not like that look one bit. But I kept quiet about it, trusting that the dude hair stylist knew what he was doing. We showed him pictures, after all. He knew what look we were going for.

And sure enough he cut, styled, and tamed down that big hair… and the end result made Andrew (and me!) very happy.

The ladies at the salon said that he walked in as an 11 year old boy and walked out looking like a 14 year old teenager. And I had to agree. His new haircut did age him a bit.

The highlights were a success, but I told him that it was a one-time deal. There’s no way I’m going to fit an 11 year old into our budget for highlights every other month, so he’s gotta grow it out and just be happy with his original god-given hair color from now on. He’s okay with that. He said, “That’s okay. I just wanted to see what it would look like!”

Happy Birthday, Andrew! Have a wonderful year being eleven!