A hair cut, and some heart ache

So, last week on the way home from school, Liv said she wanted to get her hair cut. Short. As short as mine. Kate said "No, Liv! Then we won't be twins anymore." This argument held little weight for Liv and she said she wanted to do it RIGHT NOW. I figured it we were going to do more than trimming the edges, it was worth paying a professional to do it (nothing against my own fabulous hair cutting skills. Look no further than Jack, who runs in fear anytime I pull out the clippers...)

My hair stylist LeeAnn couldn't get Liv in for a week. So all week, Liv has been talking about how excited she is to get her hair cut. And Katie how much she doesn't want it to happen. How she won't be able to put Liv's hair in ponytails, and she loves doing that. How they won't be able to play her favorite game of having people guess who is who. And most of all, once she cuts it, they won't be twins anymore. No matter how much we explained it, Katie insisted on this last point.

I am sure there is a chapter in a twin book out there about how to handle this -- but I haven't read up yet on this particular stage of twinhood. So John and I just figured if Liv wants short hair, she should be able to have short hair. And we just will do the best we can to reassure Kate that their relationship hasn't changed even if their hair has.

So today, Kate asked if they could wear matching dresses (almost none of their clothes match). We had just gotten a bag of hand-me-downs recently which included the duplicate of Liv's Christmas dress from last year (thanks, Ruth!). They dressed up, and I got these photos (Liv with necklace):

And off to the hairdresser's we went. Liv went first:

And she was VERY happy with the results:

Kate went next -- just a trim. She looked like this before, during, and after (this is after, but you can image the scene):

Then Jack was up -- LeeAnn agreed to clean up his last haircut I gave him. 

We celebrated by going out to eat at Bonny's cafe.  We saw many people there we knew -- and to Kate's delight, people still didn't know who was who.

Whew. I think we made it through that hurdle. Mostly. Which is good enough!

***
And now, a few photos from the last few weeks. First up -- a dog and her girls:

And the photos below show the "shop" Kate and Liv created one night before friends came for dinner. They decorated it with leftover Christmas ribbons, and neatly organized all of their toys. Almost everything was available to rent. Not many options for long term ownership, however. (Kate in blue).