I can’t believe it! I’m still in shock! It all started with an innocent comment on my part about how I’d like to see what Ash’s real hair color looked like. I told him he didn’t have to keep it. I was just curious.

Bam!

He was blond and I have to say he was adorable as a blond. It softened his features and made him look all boyish and charming as opposed to the I’ll-kill-you-where-you-stand intimidating Ash I’m used to seeing. I forget how unsure he can be at times. How gentle. It’s what I love most about it. Here he is, one of the most powerful beings in the universe- one who can kill you with a single thought, and he’s thrilled by something as common as a bite of vanilla ice cream.

Anyway, there he was as he’d been. Then he was back to normal. I didn’t think anything about it.

Until the next day. He had to go out and meet a DH about something or another. Simi stayed with me and we plowed through a week’s groceries. I ate a lot before I was pregnant, and now…

I might as well be eating from a trough.

But I’m off topic (been hanging with Simi too long). Baby comes home and I’m floored.

He’s bald! Well, okay not bald. Not really. It’s to his shoulders, but compared to what he had…

“What happened?” I asked. “Renegade scalp you?”

He shrugged. “I donated it to Locks of Love.”

“Oh,” I said, which somehow made him nervous.

“If you don’t like it, I can make it long again.”

He can, too. But that wasn’t the point. “It’s not my hair, sweetie. It’s yours. I love you regardless of looks. I even love you when you turn blue like a smurf.”

My invocation of Papa Smurf finally got a laugh out of him. But it worried me, because I know why he hates short hair. He can’t stand for anyone, other than me, to touch his neck- and it was a good two years before he invited me to touch him there.

Something as innocuous as a breeze blowing over his nape makes him shiver and cringe. For the first year we were married, he slept while holding a pillow over his neck.

I walked into his arms as far as a big fat pregnant woman could and kissed his lips. “I think you’re adorable,” I whispered. And I do. Every day I wake up and want to pinch myself. I still can’t believe he’s mine.

With that, I will leave you with a cute candid I snapped while he was joking around a little while later. Don’t faint. I finally got him out of black. That only took three years.

Small steps, as my grandfather used to say. You can circle the entire earth so long as you take it one small step at a time.