first! take that, beeches.

btw, laurie you are very brave.

Ohh~ Two! I have to say you look a lot like me in the baby picture. Then I got taller, and taller.

Such a cute little thang! But then, you still are :)

At least you had hair to pigtail. My mother would scotch tape a bow in my fine, flaxen hair so people wouldn't say "what a sweetle little...?" - that lasted until I was about 3 or so when she could manage to get a braid to stay in place.

Cute!
In your number 18 shirt you kinda sorta look like Drew in ET.

Do you remember just how painful a poorly executed pig tail or barrette application could be? I remember each morning dreading getting my hair done because it was like a Russian roulette of scalp tightening.

I'm praying to GOD that there is not picture of you in a she-mullet with blue glitter eyeshadow wearing braces.

Actually, I really WOULD like to see that *lol*

I love, love, love this! How incredibly creative and entertaining and just plain ol' fun. You are a true bright spot in my day, Laurie...I feel like I know you.

I was also a victim of the dreaded "body wave" and my hair has never been the same since. Note to readers - fine hair can be so badly traumatized by chemical treatments that it actually falls out or burns off at the root. Ouch.

And I hate to say it, but doesn't your brother look a LOT like Tom Cruise in the Christmas picture?

Oh, I look forward to the hairstory update as much as I do the next episode of Survivor!

Lol. I wonder if Girly will blame me for all those time I gave in to the begging and put ponytails in her hair. It's damn cute though and so are those pictures of you.

I love your hair story. My own mother was quite hazardous to my hair. It is a wonder that I have any left. One time, when we were visiting friends, my hair was falling out of its pony tail and we went into the bathroom and she mistakenly sprayed Rightguard (yes, the evil flurocarbon kind) in my hair. She forgot her glasses and thought it was hairspray. She was also the Toni home perm queen.

You are one very brave woman. I could never do that.

I love the pics! Thanks for sharing. I went through the pigtails too. I would braid them and pin them across my head. My older sister hated it that way, she thought it made me look swedish or dutch. Of course, after she told me how much she hated I wore it that way just to annoy her! :)

I love the pics! Thanks for sharing. I went through the pigtails too. I would braid them and pin them across my head. My older sister hated it that way, she thought it made me look swedish or dutch. Of course, after she told me how much she hated I wore it that way just to annoy her! :)

I so look forward to reading your blog.. makes my day.. I need the laughs.. and You have made me re-think the whole pony tail frequently in my daughters hair..as cute as it is... I certainly dont want to cause her years of Hairtherapy..

thanks again fot the belly laughs you rock

I'm grooving on that tunic top with the little yellow sleeves and the red pants. Barette lopsidedness notwithstanding, you are too cute!

Great fun story. Thanks for sharing. I am a C.A.P newby but am hooked already. I could share pictures of my own hair(and dressing) mishaps but through the years I always seeked out all the evidence and made it 'disappear".

BD

You were so cute, in each and every one of those pictures!

You were so cute!
I remember the scalp-tightening, too. Ouch!
I agree, you look like Drew Barrymore, and Guy looks like pre-crazy Tom.

Man, that was a mess of fish!

This is true bravery, and yet I believe the best (worst?) is yet to come. talk of spiral perms and she mullets? All RIGHT.

My signature look was a side parted pigtail thing in which the part mysteriously and very suddenly migrated ot the CENTER once the crown of my skull was surmounted. Made for 2 highly uneven things: pigtails and parts. Yes, I rocked the nerd house for several looooong years.

you're funny!

Is your brother still that hot?

:-P

You're beautiful, it's truuuue...

Yes, you really are, at all the stages of your checkered career. And you had the sense never to wear your hair in looped braids. I actually did this, with no one else to blame, when I was way old enough to know better. (Luckily, however, this was not captured on film.) Long live The Bun!

Oh my God, Sun-In! I haven't thought of that stuff since high school! Or maybe I just blocked it, and what it did to my hair from my memory because it was too painful!

you are one brave women putting those pics out there for everyone to see! :)

Auntie, you weren't all that country in that pic. You were wearing shoes. :p

Where are the french braids? I refuse to believe that I was the only one who had to suffer thru those suckers. Of course, I raised by a woman who sent me to class photo day in the first grade with a bird's nest bun for a hair-do. o.0

"Sun In gone wrong" I can still clearly remember my mother and father going back and forth about how long to leave it in. Yup, I ended up paying the price with orange stripes for months.... Keep in mind that it wasn't nearly as bad as the perm Mom gave me that turned me into tall Orphan Annie. sigh.

Laurie, my mom still has that EXACT high chair in her kitchen today! It was mine, and now my kids use it (despite the fact that it's a finger-nipping-danger-trap). LOVE the photos--it's like a trip down memory lane, only blonder! :)

man your brother was studly. i would have had a crush on him and he would have ignored me except when he had a french or math test and then he would have sat next to me so he could copy off of my paper ....

um..

oh..
that wasn't your brother ...

sorry.

and replace your pigtails with little house on the prairie braids. that was me. melissa gilbert but bigger.

well, yore just as cute as a speckled pup!!!
my evil brother pulled my long curls and mom whacked it all off at the age of 5. it has never been the same..

I feel your pain Tonja... when I was a youngun I had beautiful long hair. But my daily naptime caused me to sweat all over my beautiful long hair. Then my sister was born and my mother no longer had time to deal with wet-from-nap-hair. Enter the bowl cut. For years and years and years. Oh, the pain! (Ha ha, the joke's on my sister though. I chopped off her beautiful - and I mean beautiful, way more than mine - baby curls one day while playing hairdresser. Sitting on top of a Sit-n-Spin with Crayola safety scissors and using the silo from the Weeble Wobble Farm as a hair repository. We were nothing if not inventive. She suffered the bowl cut thereafter for many years as well.) Oh yeah, and my mother sat us on the back of the toilet and cut our bangs at home. Oh, and one other thing, my grandmother was paranoid about us getting sick, so she made my mom dress us in slacks almost all the time. Late 70s/early 80s slacks. You get the idea. And yeah, we looked like boys. Thanks family!

How freakin' adorable are those pictures??? There's sort of a pre-skank Britney-ish thing going on in those last pictures, I think. Except you're a natural blonde.

19...spiral perm...the early college years (1987)...it didn't look good people!

so, um, is your bother still Studdly McHottie now?

Can we see a picture of StudBrother in current day? Please oh please?

And why is there always wood paneling involved in all 1960's -1970's holiday pictures???

holy cow! I didn't know your brother was Tom Cruise! WOOO

Love the hair story so far looking forward to the later years!

So cute! Can I have your brothers phone #?

you know, my mom had a thing for pig tails too. i swear to you, i am 27 years old and if i was to show up on thanksgiving with pigtails, my mother would burst into tears... she loved them that much. and she would say, "aw, that reminds me of when you were 5!"

this is where i admit that at 27 years old, that i will occasionally pull the hair back into some pigtails if i am hanging around the house. :D

Wow, that's quite the start to Hairstory week. Looking forward to the coming years!

We should have known that about your brother, with him sportin' the Ashton Kutcher trucker hat and all.

I envy you your pigtails! I was a complete tomboy who believed she was Roy Rogers. At the age of about 4, I wore my little red cowboy boots everywhere and wouldn't answer unless I was called Roy. Yes, I do mean even at the doctor and dentist's offices, even at church. They didn't call me Roy, I ignored them. My mother, however, thought Shirley Temple was the cutest little thing in the world and, you guessed it, poor little Roy had to saddle up and ride with her head covered completely in big ole sausage curls. It's a wonder either of us lived through the humiliation.

Damn. That's a lot of home permanents, body waves, hairpins, hair elastics, and Sun-In. You were a pretty stylish girl, at least by my measurements - as a kid, I usually rocked the braided pigtails, too, but I was never sure what to do with my hair otherwise.

BTW: cute baby picture. :)

I can't fully blame my parents for the dreadful child-hair...I wouldn't hold still long enough for pigtails. Also my mother is not great with hairstyling duty. To placate me she would invent 'fancy' names for simple styles. I didn't have a braid, it was an Italian Braid.

Pity my daughter if I ever have one...I can't style beyond the ponytail and basic braid either.

The 80s still haven't reached Bayou Teche... I don't think there's any hope.

OK, I had that same high chair. Great taste, indeed!

Oh. My. God. Every single picture of you could have been of me from the same time. From the pigtails down to the perm (which incidentally didn't take on the top layers of my head. That was a GREAT look).

Quit boggarting the Paxil. There are many of us out there that need it.

Someday, I will share the picture of me after getting the Spiral Perm of Doom (circa 1989). Let us just say that ladies with long, thick, naturally wavy hair should probably not attempt the spiral perm.

Also, your parents didn't try the single ponytail on top your head? They just skipped straight to pigtails?

Actually for the baby-with-eyes-far-too-big-for-her-head: Mr. McTrivia tells me that a baby is born with eyes that are about 75% the size they eventually will reach by adulthood, and they will only grow about 1mm more in total size.

So there. They weren't too big.

And my mother like to mix the pigtail look with the crooked-bangs look; I actually had a hairdresser once ask me who had come at me with the razor blade!

Can't wait to see/hear more...

I am a nice Canadian girl of Italian background who was called Afro Woman in grade 7, circa 1981.

I would have loved to have had pigtails. I walked around wearing BRAIDS for the first eight years of my life. I think this is why I have a cable knitting aversion--they remind me too much of the dreaded BRAIDS.

Laurie - you are my twin
Fraternal, cause I am a brunette, but I am with you on the pig tails, the unfortunate gum incident, the perm, and yes, oh yes, the 3 inch tall bangs, and the "one side short, the other side feathered and long." Not to mention the side pony tail. Egads. my mother should be shot.
:)

when i was 3, i stayed at my aunt's for a few days after my mom had my baby brother. my aunt whacked off my long, blondish curls and gave me a stinking tonette home perm.

i'm told that when i saw the results in a mirror, i gave her my fiercest look and said, 'do you know what we have at my house? ANT POISON!'

You and your bro are so cute but your Dad is the hot one!

Just for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGKJcayVXU8

Hey--
You are "100" today...100 people have saved you as a bookmark on del.icio.us
How awesome is that?
Remember the good old days when shopping meant flipping through the Sears and Roebuck catalog during summer vacation and marking the pages so that Mom would order that little top with the pretty cap-sleeves that looked like angel wings?

I still lurve catalogs!!!

Oh my Laurie... I had the exact same hair styles when I was growing up... My mom was hasardous to my hair.. I was bald till I was almost three.. so she would tape bows to my head. Then when my hair did finally grow in, I was subjected to the dreaded pigtails that were never strait and so tight with crooked bangs.. I was a sight.. Then the dreaded perm came to town!!! She thought I needed one... I don't know why.. I already had naturally curly hair!!... You can just imagine what happens when you do that.. I looked like Rosanna Rosanna Danna.. I cried and cried.. would not leave the house. So my dad sat me on the counter and chopped it all off. Oh the horror of it all. I looked just like my younger brother. So much so, people thought we were twins. We wont even mention the 80's because I have no one to blame for those hair faux pas but myself. :)

Wow.. your brother is cute.. but way cuter then Tom Crise ever thought of being.

ROFL I have a hair story involving a method of brushing I used (only brushed the top layer.. my thick hair tangled underneath and I hated to brush through it.. and several hours of my mom combing it out and then having her friend hack it off. (sigh). But I did wear blue eyeliner in highschool.

I think its cute when babies have big eyes. You're a cutie. And don't worry. You will find the right man...in church, as my Dad says. :-)

Well, I thought I had successfully repressed Sun-In, but there YOU go, bringing back the trauma. And the pain of hair implements? I remember elastic bands with huge plastic balls on the end that looked like jawbreakers. My mom pulled my hair back so tightly that I could feel the outer corners of my eyes stretch. In middle school I got ambush-surrounded by the "popular girls," who made merciless fun of me for the "proper" length of my skirts, my vests, shoes, and hair. Especially the jawbreakers in my hair. Always color coordinated with my outfit.

Just de-lurking to say I love your blog. I often forward your reflections to friends of mine going through similar situations. I also totally recognize your hair - from my own teen pics.

What a cutie!!

Is it mean of me that I'm so looking forward to the next installment? :-)

OK. That last photo made me think of Drew Barrymore.

Boy haircut or no, you are McCuteness in a cup.

Ugh! Nice spam there taking up a whole page. What a pain!

Anywho...

At least you didn't have the "bowl do". And, lice rid me of my pigtails at the age of 4. Then, I had the "little orphan Annie" perm at age 7. Then, there was the she mullet on really flat, straight, stringy hair when I was about 11. Ooh, and what about the split-end version of a Farrah Faucet feather job? Classy. Basically, I didn't have a good hair day in my life until I learned to comb it myself (Incidentally, I didn't have too many "suitors" till that point, either... coincidence??). Maybe I should be sending therapy bills to my parents.

I grew up in pigtails and to this day one of my favorite hairstyles is two braids. :)

I too was the victim of bad perms growing up. For me the spiral perm hit me in junior high and it took several years for me to come to my senses.

The Hairstory posts are quickly becoming my favorite segment on my blog reading list.

This is the best. I am a little older than you, so the perm stage hit in later highschool...and college. People who only know me from my freshman ID badge days don't even recognize me anymore...of course all they could see then was curly/frizzy hair...lots and lots of it. Like a big pyramid of frizz.

The world is lucky I don't have a scanner that works...

Thanks for a great start to my day.

Okay, in the picture right after the one with the fish (you've traumatized me with that one, just so you know), what the heck is that a picture of on the belly of your tunic? Is it a blow up mattress??

Okay, I commented before reading the comments and now I just have to add that I really hope, for your sake, that your brother is NOT like Tom Cruise in some very vital ways. Particularly, THE CRAZY.

Oh Laurie, that's one thing that I love when looking at pictures from the 1970's it seems that no matter where in the country one lived or what economic background the person had, three things always looked the same: The highchairs, the children's clothes and the hairstyles! Like you I was also born in 1971 and even though I didn't live in the South my everything else from your photos looked a lot like things that I had in my childhood. What a great stroll down memory lane! :-)

I forgot to write that in the later years picture your brother looks a bit like Tom Cruise circa the "Risky Business" days. Of course this is before Tom became a crazy man obsessed with Scientology, couch jumping and telling others that "vitamins and exercise" can cure marriage problems. ;-)

Love it. My worst hair story is the tape across the forward with Mom coming with scissors for the bangs to be cut!!!!

Laurie, you and my sister must have had the same stylist--you had exactly the same hair-dos, though my sister didn't have any gum to blame the short do on. My mother favored the "dorothy hamil wedge" for me...

Anyone else have that pink tape for either taping down your bangs to be cut, or for making pin/spit curls?

Oh, what about hair FROSTING? No one has mentioned Frost and Tip - or some such name. You put the cap on your head hand pull hair through with a crochet hook thingy, and then plaster your head with toxic bleach. Nice. Did that several times to my shag haircut. Always wanted a Farrah Fawcett but never had long enough hair to get the curling ironed, feathered look. Damn.

Um, is your brother Tom Cruise? If not, he might be hotter than Tom Cruise.

Anyway.

Very amusing post...if only my own hairstory was so entertaining!! Unfortunately, I have the world's straightest hair, that refuses to take any kind of curl. Oh, and hairspray doesn't work, either. Whatevs.

OMG - body wave! That just meant they didn't leave those toxic chemicals on your head for as long as a perm! I'd forgotten all about them. Body wave!

Wow. I feel your pain.

My mother *cry* gave me perms for YEARS!!!!!!!!!!

My hair looked exactly like my 6th grade teachers hair. It was bad and cripsy.

I can't wait to see tomorrows hair history. *L* ;)

My mother over permed my hair using the excuse that my hair was soo long it would never take. Oh, it took alright... if I can ever get up the nerve to scan the picture and post it I will. Not to mention the close ups of purple mascara and raging green eye shadow. I should also mention I was wearing goomies at the time and silver plastic shoes. Those were all my fault though that I couldn't, in good conscience, blame on my mother. Shucks.

mmmm...perm fried hair. I'm sure that would bring back memories if I hadn't repressed them all.

who else had a father who wouldn't let them cut there hair? I had hair down to my waist until I was 16 when I finally rebelled. It was/is also fine and stick straight. I spent all of 7th and 8th grade with two braids, looking like Pocohantas and I have the school yearbooks to prove it.

What I find amazing is that the linked post about bubble gum hair (from April 2005) had only 21 posts. We've come a long way, haven't we?

I'm yet another 80's hair veteran, and had pigtails for years! My ten year old daughter will not submit to the pigtail, though I've suggested it from time to time. Looking forward to the next installment of your very brave Hairstory. I can't imagine posting mine, since back then I didn't have veto power over photos like I do now (I wield the mighty Delete key, obliterating all unflattering photos that cross my path).

If your parents had known the peanut butter trick (peanut butter gets gum out of hair) we would not have been treated to such a cute pixie cut.

Very cute pictures! I have some bad 80s hair stories lurking there in the background too...

Hey...in that last pic you look like Drew Barrymore!!

Oh Laurie! I know how you feel darling!!! Stay tuned I'll join you in celebrating bad hair week!

My parents latched onto both pigtails AND the side ponytail. Almost every picture from age 3 to age, like, 12 has me in pigtails or that damn side-pony.

Aw. What a cute l'il Cajun girl, and wit' all dem fish, too. You done good, yeah.

I too survived the bad perm but I daresay mine was worse:

http://antijen.blogspot.com/2006/11/jenni-africa.html