First.

It's a monumental day in the Casa de la How2. A day that has long been in the making, long in preparation, and much anticipated. May I have silence for a moment while I present:


MOTHER-EFFING PIGTAILS.

Okay. So it's probably not groundbreaking to anyone but me. God knows she is definitely no Gigi in the follicle department. (Yes. Look at that picture. Gigi's a week younger than Punk. Can we all join together in a "No fucking fair!"?). But it has taken 17, yes, SEVENTEEN, months to get to the point that Punky finally had hair long enough to constitute a puny little piggytail.

Considering she spawned from two individuals who each have INCREDIBLE hair -- thick, shiny, strong -- and throughout my pregnancy I had worse heartburn than Pavarotti after an Indian meal, I fully expected her to come out with Rapunzel-length locks. Instead, Punky came out bald as a cue ball. Which made my parents especially nervous since they were concerned she may be a "ginger" like her father.

Okay. Babies are bald. That's expected, I guess. But then what little whisps of hair she DID have, she lost. So then she was like Homer Simpson without his little lines of hair. And it stayed that way. No hair. Zero. None. Til she was like six months old. And now she's been blessed with the rate that my hair grows -- which is, um, not at all -- so it has been an agonizingly long waiting process as I've stared wistfully at the pony-o's and barettes that I had in anticipation of styling my baby daughter's beautiful locks.

Even with the hair finally here, however, the dream was also shattered by the fact that I had to rassle her like a greased pig to get them in. It's okay; I mean, spinal damage heals, right?