You Should See Me in a Pirate’s Hat

By Veronica

There are many things I do not understand about fashion. I do not understand why a headband is uncool, but using sunglasses as a headband is cool. I do not even understand what word we’re supposed to use now instead of cool.

But I do understand that moms do not need to bow to the whims of fashion. Moms are made of sterner stuff. Moms can do what is necessary, even if it does not please the fashion gurus.

And so last week, as we prepared to take the kids hiking through the woods, I laid out the backpack in which the baby would ride, and considered for a moment. The last time she rode in the backpack, she pulled my hair constantly. There must be a solution to this problem.

Forget fashion. Sometimes the only thing a mother can do is plait her hair into impervious Pippi Longstocking braids, pop the baby in the backpack, and hit the trails.

Pippi Longstocking Mama

The strands of gray make it particularly fetching.

When Veronica is not hiking through the woods or imitating Swedish children’s book characters, she blogs at Toddled Dredge.

22 Responses to You Should See Me in a Pirate’s Hat
  1. melissa
    July 14, 2009 | 6:33 am

    braids are fun no matter the age 🙂

  2. Megan
    July 14, 2009 | 8:04 am

    I, for one, think it’s a brilliant solution for the “baby in the backpack pulls my hair” quandary. Far better than my solution, which was one of those (uncool?) hair clip thingies which the baby was expertly adept at pulling out over and over and over.

    Function trumps coolness every time!

  3. Tonggu Momma
    July 14, 2009 | 8:10 am

    Just tell everyone who asks that you were going for “retro.” That’s what I do all the time. Whatever that means…

  4. Janet
    July 14, 2009 | 8:57 am

    I think two braids actually are cool (or whatever the word is). You just need to wear them with one of those straw cowboy hats with the sides turned up.

    You’re welcome. 😉

  5. Mary
    July 14, 2009 | 9:44 am

    I’ve never been fashionable, but now I have an excuse 🙂 I wear a braid and sometimes two braids for exactly the same reason. My hair is already falling out in wads as my hormones normalize after pregnancy, so I don’t need Elizabeth to remove the rest of it…

    I’ve noticed that small children (and particularly girls) think my new look is cool though. I haven’t received so many admiring comments about my hair in years! So I think it depends on the circles you are travelling in, and luckily mine seem to think double braids are the height of fashion!

  6. Anna
    July 14, 2009 | 10:26 am

    Love it. Makes me want to grow my hair out so I can sport some impervious braids of my own.

  7. Erin
    July 14, 2009 | 11:06 am

    I love that you secured the pigtails with baby hairbows. 🙂

    Also, I hope this doesn’t sound too weird, but it’s like I’m looking at a picture of MY neck. Neck twins?

  8. allysha
    July 14, 2009 | 11:53 am

    I am all about braids myself. At least I was a few weeks ago…

  9. Kelly
    July 14, 2009 | 4:04 pm

    Did the braids work? Because no matter what I do, my baby pulls my hair. She’s content to grab errant strays, if that’s all she can find.

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  11. theresa
    July 14, 2009 | 5:40 pm

    I had been wondering what I’d do about my hair if we got a backpack for our 10-month-old to ride in. Hadn’t considered braids, but now I will!

    So wait, headbands are positively, decidedly “uncool” and not just not particularly “cool” at the moment? Well, at least I decided not to buy the sparkly one that would have drawn more attention to the fact that I was wearing a headband… only because the sparkly thing seemed kind of ridiculous for an (at the time) obese 30-year-old pregnant woman.

  12. Sherri K. Edman
    July 14, 2009 | 10:09 pm

    I did braids to avoid the baby hair pulling. Then I just cut my hair all off.

    For the record, I LOVE the Pippi Longstocking look.

  13. Hannah
    July 15, 2009 | 12:07 am

    Not gray, honey. SILVER.

  14. Beck
    July 15, 2009 | 10:15 am

    That looks fantastic! I frequently go the Pippi route, because I infrequently get my haircut and my hair grows FAST. I should really have a hairdresser on staff, like Oprah.

  15. nicole
    July 15, 2009 | 5:03 pm

    I think they look great!

  16. Moriah
    July 15, 2009 | 6:06 pm

    And she didn’t pull the braids?!

  17. Veronica
    July 15, 2009 | 7:33 pm

    By the end of the hike, some wisps of hair had escaped the braids and she tugged those. The actual braids she only tugged twice, but because they were woven so tightly, it did not hurt at all.

  18. Jeana
    July 16, 2009 | 2:28 pm

    Well. It’s dry.

    I love how it curls at the end.

  19. Rivotrill.
    August 4, 2009 | 8:50 am

    Rivotrill….

    Rivotrill….

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