Exercising Control

Before I begin, a.k.a. share the news, I would first like to say that I believe children should be allowed, even at a young age, to have some control over decisions. You know, things like, "Would you like the red plate or the yellow plate?" "Do you want water or milk to drink?" "Do you want to pass out the plates or the cups?" "Do you want mayonnaise or mustard on your sandwich?" Lay out what clothes you want to wear tomorrow (Brooke puts quite the outfits together). Pick out the toothpaste you want Mama to buy. You get the general idea; of course as they get older the choices they get to make change and evolve (I am still only dealing with cuties 5 and under). I think that by letting them have control over certain aspects of their life gives them confidence, helps them be more independent, and they hopefully won't feel a need to rebel (at least not because they are rebelling against control). Well, this week I let Braden exercise some of that control over his own life. Braden has decided to branch out and exert his creativity; he and I went Wednesday afternoon to get our haircut, and he informed me that he wanted it cut short. He wanted it cut short, because Braden has now decided that spiked hair is the cool thing; I thinking that there could be worse things than a little boy who wants to spike his hair, said sure. You could also tell that it made Braden feel really good to be able to decide that for himself; his little face beamed when I replied to his request, "Sure bud, it's your hair." I also have benefited from this little hairstyle change, one, I think it is adorable (I can see his cute face better), and two, I use it as an incentive to get him to get ready faster in the morning (which is something we have been struggling with). Now, everyday he asks me if I will spike his hair, and I simply reply, "If you get ready in time, I will, but if you don't, there won't be enough time." At this point Braden runs around like a mad man getting ready as fast as he can, and I think, 'YES, that was easy!'

And now I present a new spikey version of Braden:

As an afterthought, I started thinking that maybe spikey hair is some kind of rite of passage, because I remember a certain young brother of mine sporting a similar hairstyle; I rifled through my old photos to find proof of said hairstyle. Here is that picture of Paul in all of his spikey, acid wash jeans glory (remember Paul, you love me, so you can't kill me).