Yikes!

I have mentioned before that we use satin sleep hats around this house on our Lady Belle. If you've never read this or haven't heard me say much about it, you're in luck. We use them to protect Hb's fragile hair from the fabric of her sheets AND to protect her hairstyles. They cut down on frizzies. They keep the moisture we've worked hard adding to her hair to stay IN her hair instead of on her pillowcase. If you're going to have friction with fragile hair and another material, lets let it be smooth satin, not 400 thread count sheets, or worse, the stufffing of say, Minnie Mouse. Here is what may happen when you don't respect the sleep hat...

Oh lawd. Good thing we have some good product around this house! 

To learn more about sleep caps, check this out.

Let's talk about hair

Sometimes I get the feeling like Hb's hair just isn't growing...
but then I remember we started out like this:

So, really this is something:

I am learning not to focus on length, but hair health. Her hair is coming in even (her bald patches are filled in), her hair is thick and I think, pretty healthy. I get asked a lot how I'm learning to fix her hair and that sort of thing. I read a lot of blogs. The ones I follow the most are on my blogroll. Those girls are GOOD at doing natural, curly hair. When I see a lady's hair or her child's hair and
I like it, I ask about their hair routine. We've even got a routine of our own.

We make our own deep conditioner (a mix of shea, coconut oil, aloe vera, honey, EVOO, and a good conditioner) and do that every two weeks or so, and typically our big "doing hair day" is Friday. We wash, usually just with conditioner, and style on that day. Since Hb's hair is so short, I have to restyle during the week, but it helps knowing I have a plan and I stick with the same hairstyle I put in on our "hair day." Her hair is too short for me to do elaborate braids and stuff, so we stick to what is easy. There's nothing that pulls my trigger more than spending an hour fixing her hair, only to have it covered in sand, dog hair, or just come undone b/c she's a typical two year who loves rolling around on the floor. I'm not willing to give up on the above typical two year old fun things, so we stick to easy-to-maintain styles.

The above is funny now, but it sho wasn't then.
Do you know how hard it is to get all those little hairs out? Makes me shudder to think about it.

We love free hair...hair that's not put into a typical protective style like braids or twist, etc. They're easy and I can do them over again during the week. They fit her sassy personality.

Look how long her hair really is! Those curls really shrink up, don't they?

The above is one of my favorite things to do with her hair. Two strand twists. They are easy and cute. After having them in overnight or even three to four days, we take them out and get another cute twist out hairstyle:

I love that I get to love my little girl by loving her hair. It's such a special thing in her ethnic culture and I really feel honored that I get to participate in it. Here's to natural hair!!!

What glorious hair!!

Seriously, that Hb has some glorious hair. It never ceases to amaze me. I mean, can your hair defy gravity? My hair sure can't. Though it has been and is quite the learning curve to my only slightly wavy hair, I've come to appreciate textured hair with all its ups and downs. Hb's hair is made up of zillions of tiny perfectly tendrilled curls, so tiny that if not moisturized properly they'll end up frizzy and knotted, and even THEN, we love that glorious hair. I'm learning and studying from those that I think do it well (many of them have blogs listed there to the right) and still have a lot to learn. Cornrowing, plaiting, two strand twisting, parting, co-washing, these words have become normal in our house. I'm the only one who understands it most of the time, but nevertheless they're here. So, here's to you Hb and your cutie curls! Girl, all of your hair is good!