Cherish My Daughter

Click on it!

I had the worst morning sickness during my pregnancy with this one. I couldn't keep anything down for 7.5 months. Next I suffered from the most horrendous heartburn. I didn't enjoy food again until after Mg2 was born. I felt like I was STARVING all of the time. I wanted to eat and had the same appetite you hear pregnant women have but putting food in my body started a vicious cycle. Even water was the enemy. I had to be hospitalized for fluids. I felt terrible both physically and emotionally and it showed. My face swelled up and darkened in areas. I hated my pregnancy mask. I was irrational and wondered what my baby would be like--I had an evil premonition that something bad was coming out of all of that suffering. Mg2 came early. One of my closest friends was getting married in my home town about 6 hours away. I couldn't imagine missing her wedding so I went to the doctor for advice on whether or not we should make the trip. I was 36 weeks pregnant. He examin...

Yes ya'll! I left this style in for a month! You can find out why and how the take down went here .

And you know what? I don't blame her! Come see why here .

So I ran into some problems taking down MG3's hair....I share it all here --along with some valuable lessons. As bad as it looked, MG3's hair felt so good, I was determined to work harder on my technique to improve this method for her. Time will tell. Stay tuned for round 2!

It's only been a couple of days but I've learned so much already. Let's look at the girls: 1. My fuzzy wuzzy is... ...well...fuzzy wuzzy of course! LOL! She's wearing red in today's picture. 2. MG2 initially had hers loose... I had to braid it up and put a ponytail holder around the ends. I plan to remove the ponytail holder and braid her threaded plaits all the way down to the ends just like I did for MG3 in the video. Here are my thoughts: 1. Remember how I cropped the string flush with their hair? My concern was to make the string as invisible as possible because I intended to leave the hair hanging. I think this would have worked better if I had added beads or barrettes to the end. The single knot was not strong enough to stay tied because of the friction caused by the movement of MG2's loose plaits. When she woke up after the first night of sleeping on the style, I noticed that several of the plaits had string beginning to unravel. This could have ...

I can NOT believe how much the African Threading process stretched out MG2's really damp, highly shrunken hair. In fact, it's still damp in the above picture, but the tension of the thread is keeping her hair stretched out. I wasn't even looking for this, but I'll take it! I'm told by GirlsLoveYourCurls that Africans use this method to stretch out their hair without heat. I'm sold! I'll post pictures a couple of weeks from now when I take this style down so you can see how stretched her hair is loose. Follow me step by step as I show you what I did with this combo style: Step 1: Detangle and moisturize. I used plain water to dampen the hair to help me coax out the snarls first with my fingers followed by my Tangle Teezer brush. I locked in the moisture using my shea butter mix . Step 2: Part the hair from ear to ear and clip away the top half. Step 3: Make your first vertical part to begin cornrowing down. Cornrow down the length of the row you'...

View Video

View Video

View video

View Video

I been watching videos about pipe cleaner curls all over You Tube. Check out Chescaloc's tutorial. Why not try these on braids/twists? Same concept as perm rods/ flexible rods at a fraction of the cost. They are much more comfortable to sleep on. While testing them first on myself, I barely felt them. As an extra safety measure, I folded the sharp ends over. MG2 has twists and MG3 has braids. The pipe cleaners yield tight curls and ringlets. I don't recommend trying these on loose hair--the strands may get caught in the twisted pattern of the pipe cleaners. I purchased my pipe cleaners for a little over $1 at Walmart and made sets for us all. The results:

Special occasions stressed me out when I was trying to conform our nappy hair to styles better suited for straight hair. No more! It's amazing how many gorgeous styles we can achieve by following our nappy hair's natural tendencies. I thought my daughters were especially lovely today. We were having so much fun, we didn't start taking pictures until after they had removed their dresses but their hair held up really well. Twists are so wonderful for girls. We kept the twists in for nearly three weeks. This morning I slicked my hands with grapeseed oil(any oil your daughter's hair likes is fine) and gently pulled apart their twists. My four year old is wearing a braid out. I no longer twist her hair long term because her hair mattes up quickly in twists. I followed the same method of slicking my fingers with oil to coax apart her strands. In some areas I used the tail end of a rat tail comb. To preserve this style at night, I either gather my daughters' hair ...

To stretch out the hair without using heat try the following: 1. Wash and detangle hair. 2. Braid in 6 big box braids. Position your braids with the twisted style you have in mind. 3. Allow to air dry overnight. 4. To style, take down the big box braids one at a time. Spritz the hair with plain water on the mist setting before applying shea butter mix/oil of your choice. Finish twisting the entire section before repeating the process with the next big box braid. If you mist and twist one section at a time, the hair won't remain loose long enough to shrink back up. Maintenance 1. Put in a ponytail ( don't pull the hair tightly). Wrap ends of ponytail around the band and tuck under. Cover with a silky wrap or cap. 2. For bath/shower, keep hair bunned but allow the hair to be exposed to steam. It may get damp, but the tension of the bun works well to prevent it from shrinking back up. Allow the hair to dry before removing the bun. We usually take ours down after break...

I seldom choose to style my daughters' hair in tiny box braids. They are time consuming to put in and remove. I usually save this style for special occasions. It's a big favorite for stretchability. We can achieve about an 85% stretch with tiny braids, even though I put them in without first stretching the hair with heat. Tiny braids also mimic loose hair and can be worn in variations everyday. My girls love putting their hair in a pony tail, removing it and putting it back up again a million times a day. Tiny braids permit my daughters to enjoy the freedom of independent styling without filling their loose hair with knots. I'll never forget Mocha Girl Two's (age 7) first experience with tiny braids. I can't remember where we were going when I decided Mocha Girl Two was finally ready for tiny braids. She sat perfectly, for hours as I put them in. We all thought the finished style was spectacular. Mocha Girl Two was ecstatic. She danced around and swiveled ...