A Little Hair Experiment

Jayla let me wash her hair today. Now, I know that would not be big news for anyone outside of my little family but, that is HUGE news around here. She HATES getting her hair washed and therefore, rarely consents to letting me do it. And since I'm all about picking my battles, as long as there is nothing growing on her scalp or anything, I generally go fairly long periods of time without washing it.

But, today was a glorious day. We were picking out a dress for her to wear to this weekend's birthday party when she discovered her luggage set in her closet. She pulled it out and started rummaging through everything. She found a travel bottle of shampoo in her toiletry bag and asked if she could have some. I explained that it would require me to wash her hair. And she asked if she could have clean hair. It was AWESOME.

So, I did the old school Saturday afternoon ritual that my mom used to do with me. That meant that Jayla was on the kitchen counter with her head dipped in the sink for the first time in her life. I used to go through that every weekend so it was almost surreal to be on the mama side of that ritual. But, she did great.

And since she was into getting her hair tampered with, I decided to try out a new style. As most of you know Jayla has had the same exact hairstyle everyday since she was like 18 months old - some version of three braided ponytails. Finally, about a month ago I got sick of her looking like that and decided to switch it up a bit. I even played with the idea of doing something that might stay up for a few days as several people in the past few weeks have asked me if we do her hair everyday. Absolutely. My husband or I spend 20 minutes on her hair each morning.

So, I thought I would seize Jayla's willing attitude today and work on a style that has the potential to stay put for more than 4 hours at a time. I just gave her a few large two-strand twists while she was watching High School Musical 2 this afternoon. It started out looking adorable...



She even managed to take a nap and then get ready for today's birthday party with her hair still intact:



During the party, she spent about 30 minutes falling in the grass and waddling around right lady-like in her dress. And here is her hair and sweaty forehead by the end of the party:


Ahhhh...when I first finished her hair, I had so much hope for a lasting style but, I don't think I'm going to get it. We're committed to sending her to church tomorrow with whatever hair she wakes up with but, I have a feeling that it's not going to last through tomorrow. I'll keep ya'll posted though...