Adventures in Highlighting

Most of the time, our family feels pretty ordinary.

We watch TV, eat at Chick-fil-A, go to church, pay the bills, walk the dogs, and so on. Not all families make regular trips to pediatric specialists, of course, but those things feel like anomalies in an otherwise stereotypical family experience. Sometimes I have to laugh, though, because (more often than I think) stuff that we do isn’t stuff that other families do…and most of the time that Other Stuff revolves around Mr. Andi. How many daddies highlight their thirteen year old daughter’s hair?

I don’t think it’s a widespread practice.

When I was just a little older than Sarah Kate, my mom took me to have my dishwater blonde hair highlighted. I don’t remember asking for it – I think she noticed my once-golden locks getting darker and felt the need to put a stop to it. For a few years, she religiously took me to the salon, but it got harder and harder to fit in the appointments with my school activities. She decided after years of watching that she could do it herself, and home highlighting became a thing for me.

She was still doing my hair when I got married, and Mr. Andi was with me the final time, just before the wedding. He watched her work, and she casually suggested that he could do it. After I washed and dried my hair, I discovered she’d decided to make me a LOT more blonde than I wanted, leading me to rant and rave about her not doing it like I wanted, and in turn, Mr. Andi declared he’d be happy to do it for me the next time.

Mr. Andi will try just about anything, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet.

On Monday, when I picked Sarah Kate up from school, she asked me if I would ever let her color her hair. Rather than answer her right away, I endeavored to get to the root of her question. I was relieved to learn she wasn’t asking for a rainbow mane (!!!) – just thought her color was a little dull and wanted something different. I suggested adding highlights and told her, with a straight face, that her daddy could do it.

It is a testament to our unique family dynamic that she neither laughed nor doubted me.

Sarah Kate, being the unique and mostly-fearless kid she is, not only agreed to let Mr. Andi highlight her hair, but also told all of her friends that she was getting highlights, and shared that her Daddy was going to do them.

At that point, there was no turning back.

So on Wednesday evening, they gathered in the kitchen with the supplies, and I grabbed my camera because HELLO! this is blog fodder for sure.

She clearly had no idea how long it was going to take, but she was a trooper while he pulled hair through all the little circles in the Old School cap.

There is a price to be paid for beauty, my friends.

When he started putting the developer on, I started to get nervous. Although I had plenty of confidence in the highlighting of my own dishwater blonde hair back in the day before the oodles of gray set in and I said goodbye to hair color forever, I had a small panic attack thinking her darker locks might turn orange, and if so, 10:00 pm on Wednesday would be way too late to do anything about it.

But in the end, my fears were unfounded. Her hair looks great – brightens her face up a bit – and she’s very happy with it. My only regret? That I didn’t make them wait until Saturday afternoon when I would have better lighting for the pics. 🙂

What does your family do that makes you unique? You know you’ve got something to share!