A Guessing Game...

Any guesses?  I know it looks a bit gross.  I tried to pretty it up by putting it next to something lovely aka an old silver bowl with flowers in it.

It's actually one of Kenson's locs.  He decided to cut one of them this week.  It actually fits well with this post so hopefully that explains the need for me to share such a random, odd picture.

Kenson's locs have been in for over 18 months.  They were started with single strand twists.  In the last few months, I have switched to latchooking as a tightening method rather than palmrolling and twisting.  I tighten the new growth maybe every 6 weeks.  He has a lot of hair and it takes a long time to get them tightened.  Especially if I only can work on it for 45 minutes at a time due to our schedule or my child's tolerance for the sitting.  Sometimes it feels like it takes us two weeks to get everything tightened up.

It has really grown and that now leaves D and I with the question of what we should do with the length. 

It is starting to hang in Kenson's eyes.  Many people with longer locs wear headbands or ponytails to keep the hair out of their eyes.  However, most of those people are not a 4 1/2 year old little boy.  I have two concerns about the length:  that wearing headbands/ponytails will elicit many comments about him being a girl (which we already get) and that it may not be age appropriate for him to have such long hair.  I know a lot of that centers around cultural norms and expectations of others.  (And trust me, if you knew me in person, you would probably realize that I am not the type who spends much time on what others think.)  But for us, it raises the question of what will make Kenson feel best as a preschool boy. 

We're not thinking cutting the locs off, just trimming them.  Generally speaking, you are supposed to be able to trim locs just like regular hair.  That said, the thought of actually cutting them makes me nervous.  It's probably just one of those things that I just need to take the plunge and do.  

Hopefully now the beginning of this post will make perfect sense.  Although I'm less than thrilled that he cut his hair, at least now I know that the locs aren't going to do anything too weird if I cut them. 

So perhaps I should thank him for taking the plunge for me.  Or maybe I'll just keep that part a secret.