Cherish My Daughter

This has been difficult for me to walk out.  The time I spend working with my girls' hair gives me a vested interest.  Sometimes the lines are blurred.  Is it their hair or my hair? After sacrificing countless hours to put in a protective style, using the best products I could find for my budget shouldn't the girls want to flow with me? In reality, their opinion don't gel with mine.  When they are young I try my best to consider their preferences but generally my will prevails. However, I have learned to handle my tweens and teens with care. It's an already awkward stage of self discovery.  Black women already have an uphill battle of celebrating what their hair does naturally when the general culture hypes up the very opposite.  Ever watch a make over?  What happens to most ladies with curly hair? I want to help make the process of my girls finding their footing with their hair as easy as possible. For me, this has come to mean being read...

Honestly, I don't know much about this couple and can only speculate about their situation just like others watching the video they shared on Youtube.  I thought it would still be useful to have a conversation about certain aspects of what they shared, but in a general sense. If you watch the Scope you'll notice that I'm pretty passionate about marriage.  I know that there are times when despite a person's best efforts, the relationship isn't saved.  My point is to always consider whether we are taking the most productive steps we can toward working things out.  Sometimes we do the best we can with what we know. I hope that by sharing what I know from personal experience, someone may consider a different perspective and possibly gain ground.

Is it easier for our teens to receive good advice from an older teen whose experience is still fresh? Sometimes. My daughter Head Mocha Girl still has another year of high school left, but she remembers feeling both excited and anxious the first year she started.  We had her friend YouTuber Sophie, from Sophie Smiles, a rising freshman in High School over to our house and had so much fun reminiscing and offering suggestions. Follow the link in this video to see the Pringles Challenge they did together for Sophie's channel.

This short hair journey is almost one years old!  I can't believe that I will celebrate one year since cutting off my locks in June. It has been wild, with newbie vibes all over again as I learn barber shop lingo and that one should definitely be paying attention to what the barber is doing with his clippers.  I'll never forget when my reward for texting and browsing Instagram was the bomb hair cut I never asked for. Live and learn. In this video I share my plans for the future and reminisce about my locks while doing the simplest make up application EVER because it's all about the hair. Enjoy!

Every good Stay At Home Mom (SAHM) has turned her children into a little army of experts when it comes to chores, right? Maybe the working moms have the monopoly on kids who actually get the job done well, because this SAHM hasn't always been successful.  There are days when we still fall short, and I am not embarrassed to walk you through my beautiful mess in hopes that I am not alone. If you just can't get a chore system together or you find yourself nagging about the same things every day, I share three problem areas in this video you may want to look at.  I know that when I am consistent with addressing these three things we do much better with chores. The trick is not slipping into our old habits and staying consistent, but I'll save that for another video.

There was a time I actually thought it noble to focus all of myself on the children, and felt offended by the implication that I should take breaks. I've learned that ignoring myself isn't necessarily selfless, and my children will ultimately benefit from a more complete me. It does occur to me that one day all five of my kids will fly the nest, and then what?  Should I worry that my skills won't permit me to pick things up where I left them before I became a mother and decided to leave the work force? I've learned to look forward instead of looking back.  I'm ever growing and changing.  I don't expect to pick up where I left off, but to build on what I've been doing all along. In the video I share what that may look like.  Check it out and be sure to let me know what you think.

Have you noticed that I love to flat twist my girls' edges for many of their styles?  I find that this keeps their styles looking neat for longer, while protecting their edges.  My girls love to twirl the hairs along their hairline absently, but they will leave the area alone because of the flat twists.  Win, win!

I felt so sorry for this mom.  I had seen her from time to time picking up her daughter, but didn't know her well enough to offer any kind of support.  Possibly, she was mortified on the inside, but my impression is the scenario was typical for her, and in such cases we can become numb to how bad we look to others.  Maybe she feels powerless to expect anything different from her daughter, but she is ignoring her greatest asset.  There is no way I would be shelling out all of those dollars to the dance school and carting my daughter back and forth if my welcome was not sure. If we don't demand appreciation and respect from our children, what other authority will they honor?