Claire's a redhead. Red hair stands out. You know when you are in the grocery store and nice people stop you to admire your child and they always have some specific thing that they point out like, "oh wow, he sure is a big boy" or "that's quite the smile she has". Well, Claire's "thing" is her red hair. It's attention getting, which is great since Claire likes getting attention. While Claire was exceptionally bald as an infant, in the last six months or so, she's started to develop quite the head of hair. A red, curly, head of hair, to be exact. For the most part, I've been able to let her locks do their own things and run free. Generally, all I have to do is get her hair wet, brush through it and it magically transforms from shoulder length hair, into dozens of little corkscrew curls tights against her head. Voila. No fuss.

In the last few weeks though, I've noticed that her curls have gotten a little wilder. Since we are nowhere near her first haircut, I followed the advice of my good friend (and almost neighbor) Heidi and took a stab at pigtails. In my, again, biased opinion. They were/are beyond cute. Since the hair on the top of her head hasn't quite caught up to her party in the back, a little headband action completed the look.

I could stare at this next one forever. She might not cooperate for photos lately but if this is what non-cooperation looks like...I'm all for it.

Let me acknowledge how insanely grown up having her hair pulled back makes my sweet baby look. So big. So bright. I'm a lucky mama.

 

Not for one second can I muster up enough humility to pretend that I don't realize that my child has gigantic, piercing, brown eyes. These were the eyes that danced through my dreams when I was pregnant.

No. I'm not psychic. I didn't have an eye premonition. But, these two women are her great-grandmothers. As Claire gets older, more and more friends and relatives have been drawing parallels between Claire and her great-grandmothers and their striking eyes. It's genetic.