Biet's First Haircut

It happened.  My once-upon-a-time itty bitty baby girl climbed upon the seat and waited. All too conspicuously trying to quell her excitement, she gazed into the towering lighted mirror before her.  As the flowing black cape swept over her shoulders and the seat raised up to the highest height, a shy little smile broke through my baby doll's lips.  Sitting up straight in her throne, her entire body enshrouded by black fabric draping nearly to the floor, with her curl-engulfed head poised prettily on top, she was no longer a baby.  I was surprised to realize that she blended right in with the many well-heeled ladies and gents who sat beside her in the salon, draped in capes and reading magazines as they had their locks chopped and coiffed and colored.
She had, unmistakably, arrived at the door of her childhood; the brass-knobbed rainbow-striped door of independence and adventure that stands between the tender baby years and the brazen era of childhood.  And like the true strong-willed and stylish girl that she is, she was going to march through that door with a new do.
Jamie misted her curls and snipped away. Biet watched intently in the big mirror, turning her head as advised and quizzically eyeing the falling strands and curls as they tumbled down past her feet and landed softly on the floor.  All morning she had been asking me "Mama, gonna go to Jamie? Jamie's gonna do my hair!?," and I would reply "Yes, Biet, today we're going to see Jamie!," and she would throw her hands up and yell "Yeah!!."  I was certain that her excitement would mount to an eager, wiggly, scissor-grabbing experience at the salon, but I was wrong.  Quite the lady, she kept her hands in her lap and entrusted Jamie with her wild mane.  Quite the observer, she took in every detail around her, from the soft blush color of Jamie's hair to the rows of antique potion-like bottles against the wall, to the shiny-handled shears that danced around her head.  Quite the little girl, when I inquired where she would like to go with her new haircut, she exclaimed, "the  park, Mama!".
And now my baby big girl storms the city and wanders the streets and climbs the playgrounds with a beautiful bouncy bob.  And tucked away in a little paper envelope in a quiet drawer at home lies my reminder of the baby that she once was.  A single spiraled lock I've kept, the ends of which are feather soft, as they were the downy hair she was born with.  Once upon a time those hairs covered her tiny head as she grew in my belly, before I became a mother.  Now they remind me of how miraculously far we've come.