My daughter is not a petite, floral, girly girl type of person. She was born bald, so I never got to accessorize her hair with barretts and headbands. She has just lately started caring about bracelets, necklaces, and watches. So usually she wears comfortable clothes and I squirt her hair with water to brush out the tangles and she is ready for her day. When she does decide she wants a ponytail or pigtails, she usually decides against it within an hour after putting them in.
So when my daughter told me she wanted me to braid her hair, I thought, “Yeah right!”
Not only did I tink it was a waste of my time to put her hair in braids just to have her change her mind within the hour, her hair was cut in layers and is just barely shoulder length, so it would be impossible to just braid her hair.
But after much complaining on her part, my husband got sick of hearing her pleas and chimed in, “Ok, Mommy promises she will put braids in your hair.”
This got a fairly deadly look from me since I really hate it when he volunteers me to do things without my consent, but I started raking my brain for a way to put a braid in her hair.
French braids.
I had never done them before in my whole life, but I figured if I could pull it off then at least it would make her happy. So I got a squirt bottle, a comb, a couple of hair ties, and some cartoons, since I knew I would never get her to stay still long enough for me to attempt this without some kind of distraction.
The first one was ridiculous, half the hair didn’t even get in the braid like it should have and the braid itself was lopsided and goofy looking. The second one did much better, although she yelled, “ouie!” more than a couple of times. It took me a full half an hour, and three attempts to put two french braids in her hair to make french braid pigtails.
So for a few minutes I watched her look at herself in the mirror, a big smile on her face, just waiting for her to decide she didn’t want them anymore. But as luck would have it, I hadn’t wasted my time as much as I thought, because she left them in all day long, showing them off to Daddy, Grandma, & Papa with pride.
Maybe I should try to do her hair more often….
