And the winner is ...

Margaret!

For her "Whatever you want to call it" chalk drawing (she named it herself).

She won first prize in the 5-and-under chalk drawing competition downtown this weekend at the Art and Jazz Fest. Woot!

I love that her drawing is non-objective. She didn't draw any of the typical 5-year-old girl subjects: kittens, butterflies, children starving in Darfur.

This is Kate and her chalk drawing. I think hers is wonderful too with its flowers made out of outlines of her hands. The colored ovals are raindrops. Wouldn't it be grand if it rained colors?

Mar and Kate danced and ran and generally enjoyed their day downtown. Their earnest expresssions kill me. Notice Mar's long ponytail cascading down over her shoulder.

It's not there anymore:
Sunday I couldn't take her complaining anymore.

Every morning, it was the same thing: Mar would cry because she didn't want her hair combed. We'd try to get the tangles out gently but the long, fine hair was always knotted.

She didn't want it long. Her dad and I did. She didn't want it combed, we did. She wanted it cut, so I cut it.

It was the hardest thing to do. I held the scissors up to her hair several times before I could actually cut it.


6 inches of beautiful, blond, little-girl hair fell to the floor. I kept repeating the facts over and over as I cut:

She cries when we comb it.
It is all ratty at the bottom.
She doesn't like it.
It doesn't look good.

Every time I opened the garbage can to throw something away, I would see the long bunches of little-girl hair. It made me sad, but it's her hair.

She should get to wear it like she wants to ... for the most part.

I put my foot down when we asked me to dye it black (but I was smiling on the inside).