We’ve come a long way since the good old days when this blog was almost entirely devoted to pictures of babies in containers.

But the other day we headed to Baltimore to visit our friends Christian and Emily and their daughter (and Alden’s good friend) Iris. At first, the kids just hung out on the couch.

But then some more friends showed up, Garet and Matt, and their daughter Addie. Once there were three little girls in the mix, things quickly got out of hand. Iris said to Alden something along the lines of, “Remember when we used to get into pots and pans and drawers and guitar cases and the like so that our parents could take pictures of us and post them on that blog?”

Alden was like, “Yeah, those were the greatest moments of my youth.”

Addie said something like, “I’m so glad I came to this party. You are enlightened people.”

First Alden and Addie hung out in a box.

Then Alden and Iris hung out in the box.

And then, as if to openly thwart the limits of the possible, Alden, Iris, and Addie all hung out in the box. As you can see, it was not a large box. But neither were they large little girls.

While the girls were playing, Kato was slowly making his way up the stairs. When he finally reached the top, he found the girls and informed them that he, too, would like to get in the box.

Suddenly, there was a mass little girl exodus, and Kato had the box to himself. He didn’t seem to mind. He’s still young and naive. He’s still pretty much just a baby in a container.

One of my dearest friends from growing up in Chestertown returned this week for a visit. I would post a picture here, but I was so excited to see him that I totally forgot to take any. Sorry, world.

Anyway – Gunther is a hair stylist. I am a miserable keeper of hair. He saw the state of my hair, and demanded that he be allowed to intercede. Matthew snapped pics at the Dunkin’ Donuts before I was put under the blades.

I had no idea how shaggy it was looking back there. One of the benefits of having very few mirrors in the house. (Though, to be honest, even if all of our walls were painted in mirrors, I still probably wouldn’t have known. I make a terrible terrible girl. Sturdy tomboy roots. That’s the problem.)

Anyway. 45 minutes, some fancy product, a flat-iron and a lot of catching up later, Gunther had tamed the mane.

Matthew rushed to take the photos before I could mess it up.

But I was inspired. For the first time, I looked around at my family and noticed the abysmal state of their hair.

Alden has always had a champion head of hair, but lately it’s really gotten out of control. She spends most of the day swiping it out of her eyes, which we sometimes remedy with pigtails. Unfortunately, pigtails require the sort of attentiveness that this mom doesn’t always have, so she often goes without. She is not happy about this.

Kato, on the other hand, has a feeble head of hair that no one would really envy. It is long and wispy and rather unflattering.

Neither of them had ever had a haircut before, so I was prepared for the worst.

Kato, being a generally laid-back dude, was totally agreeable to the task at hand.

Not a peep. Not a protest. Just affable as can be.

Alden, on the other hand, started out irritated by my clumsy efforts to put her bangs into pigtails (saving the first curls for posterity).

She handled the actual cutting of the hair without much trouble:

But when she found out I was just going to spray her bangs wet to even them out instead of letting her take a shower, she got mad.

You never know what’s going to tip that kid off the deep end. But she suffered the indignity pretty well, and was back in form for the “After” photo shoot.

As was Kato.

We celebrated with a strawberry picnic on the living room floor.

Now that that’s done, I just have to convince Matthew to shave, so that we can all look sort of put together for just one day. It would be a miracle.

p.s. for those of you worried about Alden’s curls, I didn’t touch the back of her head. It is still an amazing nest.

p.p.s. for those of you worried about Alden’s bad attitude, rest assured that it remains intact. The photo shoot ended like this: