Hair Care

Ruth Ann gets lots of compliments on her hair and I've said before that I prayed for many months that she would have the same good hair her daddy and her older both have. Well, she got it and came into the world with a head full of blond hair...the blond part was a complete shock to me since I had black hair when I was born. Anyway, as much as I love that I've always been able to put a bow in that full head of hair...it's a mixed blessing...as a baby it was a chore having to keep food out of her hair but now styling an active toddler's hair is one of the most stressful chores of my whole day! Her hair seems to constantly be getting thicker and thicker. Each time I can finally get all of her hair out of her face...more starts growing in and for months she looks like she has thin bangs. I've been able to french braid since my own childhood, but I've been trying to master a tiny french braid across her forehead to get all those little hairs out of her face...today we did it...



But I think I must have said "keep your head still", "look straight ahead" and "stop moving your body" a hundred times before it was all over. In the ENT practice where I work we see a large pediatric population and when I see a black mother come in with an 18 month old little girl with lots of perfect little braids in her hair I'm in complete awe. How in the world do they do this?? After 2 years of taking care of Ruth Ann's hair I'm convinced the black mothers of America are sitting on a well kept secret as to how to get their daughters to behave and sit still for hair styling. A secret by the way that white mothers would probably pay a small fortune for it were ever to be shared in print! I read an article about a mother who adopted a little girl from Africa and learned all about styling her hair because she knew that in their culture this was a bonding time for mother & daughters and she wanted to share that sweet time with her daughter...believe me when I say there is no bonding going on when I'm trying to put my wiggly little 2 year old's hair up in a pony tail. I'm pretty sure she'll have no sweet memories of the time we've shared fixing her hair in the morning. I'm reminded of a summer when I was 4 years old...we went to the beach with my grandparents and I'm told I would not allow my mom to put my very long hair up in a pony tail all week. This resulted in a head full of tangles and I'm sure lots of tears on my part. My mom vowed to cut it all off when we returned home...and she was a woman true to her word. I went from having lovely long hair to the popular at that time, Dorothy Hamil cut. This is example 483 of how I sympathize with the decisions my mom made as a mother of 2 small children and am convinced I'm just going to keep reliving my own childhood through my mother's eyes!