Rachel's Blatherings: hairland

Showing posts with label hairland. Show all posts

A New Beginning

31 March 2011

Pea is beginning a new adventure--locs! She doesn't like sitting all day to have her hair done and I simply don't have that kind of time on a regular basis anymore. So, we decided to start her with locs (that's the PC term for dreadlocks, in case you were wondering). Saturday I spent all day (about 9 am to 5 pm, not including the bath at the beginning) putting the twists in that will become the locs over time. She did great and I really like how the starters turned out. ('though I think a middle part suits her better than the side one she's sporting above)
Aa was my hero that day as he devoted himself to all the things I normally would have been doing but couldn't--baby care, running errands, house work--and all the more so since we were expecting my parents to arrive that same evening! He is far and away the best husband a girl could ever dream of. Worth his weight in gold. (And check out Punk's "hair chair"! Guess he was jealous the girlie gets her own throne for hair days and decided to produce his own version!)

Hair stuff

14 December 2010

I was having a conversation with Pea's teacher on Friday about her hair and it inspired me to record a few things here.

First of all, in the fall I put in yarn extensions, as usual. Well, it seems Pea has made friends with one of the lunchroom attendants--an African American man named Sam. When she showed up with her extensions, he commented how beautiful they were. Mrs. B (Pea's teacher) said, "Her mom put them in." To which Sam replied, "No way a white woman did that!" :) Can't ask for any higher praise than that!

So, last weekend it was time to take them out. Her hair was so beautiful! I could hardly believe how long and full it has gotten since she first came home. Anyway, we all loved the look of the "braid out" so I let her wear it that way to church Sunday and school Monday.

This first pic is a little blurry, sorry about that. I included it because it's a little truer to how her hair really looked than the second shot.

But, I couldn't figure out how to keep it looking like this. (If you know, please tell me!) Monday evening I put in some simple box twists. And, for a little festive flair, we added jingle bells to each one. I was worried about it being annoying. But, if you don't mind the sound of beads, you won't mind the bells. They are pretty quiet.

I really want to get her into microbraids that will become locs. But, since locs are permanent and all, I'm waiting till I can take her to a salon to have it done. It'll be a fun way to kick off 2011!

What We've Been Up To

25 March 2010

My husband and mother-in-law let me know I've been neglecting you, my dear readers. So, I don't have much to share, but what I have, I give to you.

First of all, I've been working on Elizabeth. I bought the new fabrics I needed and actually found one of the originals in the last store I visited! So, there are 27 different fabrics in this quilt! I've made the 24 Delectable Mountain blocks. Each of the 24 is unique--no two are exactly the same. After some little adjustments, they turned out awfully nicely! I'm pleased. These four are just a representation. But they may end up being the "chosen ones" that become the center of the finished quilt top!

The other tidbit I have for you is my dear Punky Punk showing his punkiest self! :) After seeing a friend proudly sporting his own "BA Barrachus" mohawk, Punk decided he could pull it off too! I actually really like it! It's very fun and makes people smile everywhere we go. He obviously has the attitude to pull it off!

Speaking of hair, Peapoddy will be getting her own spring makeover this week. It's Spring Break, so I'll have time to mess around. We'll be cutting loose the extensions, but who knows what style we'll end up with?! I'll be sure to post (in a timely manner!).

Lessons in Long

Pea gets to be a flower girl in a wedding next weekend. The bride was a big part of Pea's life back in the orphanage and they had a bond. It's really special to be able to serve her in such a wonderful way.

Because the bride is a "missionary kid" who was raised in Liberia, still lives in Liberia, and is marrying another "missionary kid" who grew up in Liberia, the wedding has a Liberian theme! So fun! So, Pea's dress is a traditional Liberian style, made of Liberian fabric, by a Liberian seamstress. We'll always treasure it. Here's a sneak peak of the dress.

The bride specifically requested that I put LONG extensions in Pea's hair--with white and clear beads. A friend (who also has Liberian daughters and who recently moved about 1 mile from us) asked me if she could come and learn yarn extensions next time I did them. I was very glad to show her and even happier to have her help! She learned quickly and even though these braids are the longest I've ever done by far, we were done quicker than ever. Of course, it still took hours upon hours.

Here we are with the braided princess. Do we look exhausted?!

Pretty Pea with Proud Punk.

And, from the back.Dancing for joy over long hair.

Weekend with Dottie

We had a houseguest this weekend. A visitor from Pea's class. A giant, soft, stuffed ladybug named Dottie. If you've been following the blog long, you may remember when Dottie visited us once before as Punk's guest. Frankly, I think her first visit with us was probably more fun. Aw well. She got introduced to the wonderful world of yarn braids this time around.

I would have waited another week or two to redo Pea's hair, but the next three weekends are booked. So, it was now or something simpler and less lasting. I thought I'd save myself time this go-round by preserving the divisions from last time. Well....nope. In fact, I had to enlist A's help (he took out old ones while I put in new ones) and it still took us ALL day (we kept the kiddinkies up until 10 PM!) to get her whole head done to this point.

Then I had to do the finishing this morning.

Every time I re-do the yarn extensions, I intend to make them longer, but, somehow, they always end up shoulder-length every time! Oh well. It's cute and I worry that longer hair would be too heavy for her anyway.

Of course, Dottie was interested and wanted a few yarn braids of her own! :)

The Last of the Hair Posts?

This weekend I had my hair trimmed. It hadn't been cut in months because it's growing out, but it needed a touch of style. I picked this photo of Heidi Klum (who has the world's longest natural neck) and asked the stylist to recreate something similar.

Her comment was that Heidi's hair is "a lot longer than" mine. Well, yeah--her neck is 3 times longer than mine! Oh well, we did end up with something close.

And, then, I went for it. I had the pink streak added. It hides a lot and is a bit farther back than I thought it would be, but it's fun nonetheless. :)

Hair, Hair, Hair!

Let me start with a little update on Punk's new hair. He came home from school Monday and told me that some kids at school were making fun of his hair. :( I asked him how he felt about it (sad) and whether he still liked his hair the way it is (yes). Later, he told A about it. A asked what he did when the kids said those things. "I told them they hurt my feelings." Pretty good response. Now that it's been a couple of days, it seems to be okay. We'll see how long he wants to keep the "bald" look.

At Pea's preschool each week the study a new letter. Each letter is represented by a Letter Person with certain characteristics. So far they've had Mr T with Tall Teeth, Mr F with Funny Feet and Mr M with the Munchy Mouth. This week is Mr H with Horrible Hair, so today everyone is to come in with horrible hair.

It's hard to make nice hair look horrible temporarily, but I think Pea and I did a pretty good job!

To see Punk's horrible hair from last year, click here.

Now, while we're on the topic of hair, mine's making me a little crazy. I'm growing it out for A, but it's so tempting to cut it all off! My remedy is to get a trim and pink extension in October (they have them in October in a way that benefits breast cancer awareness). Whatcha think?

400th Post!

Well, this is sort of a study in what not to do when styling your daughter's hair for her first day of Pre-K!!!! This took me two days (with lots of breaks and late starts both mornings) and is FAR from perfect. It looks pretty darn good, though. I'll tell you what went wrong (mostly so I can not make the same mistakes next time), but only because it's not a disaster!

So, this is the left side. It's shorter than the right side and has 10 fewer braids. Or, it did until I moved the part over one row. It's looks more balanced, but the side part makes her look even older (the extensions seem to add a few years no matter what!).Here's the back. Where I ran out of beads. I started beading from the bottom. Dumb. Note to self and those who copy me: Bead the top layers first! Or, make sure you have enough beads before you start! I know most people won't notice, but the sides have three beads per braid and the back has two. Plus, the top 3-4 layers have the glow-in-the-dark beads that I started with interspersed with the similar-but-smaller-and-brighter beads I had to sprinkle in to stretch the look. Oh, and if you happened to notice (while you were trying to distinguish the different bead types) that it looks uneven, I assure you it's not. She just cocked her head for the photo.And the right side. Just two more errors to report. The whole shebang isn't long enough to get into a ponytail, but I can do half- or whole-pigtails. And headbands. And, the parts are all really wack-a-doo. So, I won't be reusing them next time. Which means, I'll be doing this allllllllllll over again in about two months. But, hopefully that'll set me up for the winter!
She'll be the cutest pre-Ker at school on Monday! :)

How 'Bout a Re-do?

Well, Pea's last set of braids lasted 6 weeks. The growth is just too much for me. It just looks silly and sloppy to me. So, out they came.

I had planned on putting in new braids using the old parts, but decided that all that extra "hair" is probably too hot for summer. Plus, I've heard of lots of braids coming out in the pool. So, eventually, I'll put in some flat twists or box twists, but for now it's free (my favorite style on her, actually) and we got a compliment from a Black lady at the grocery store yesterday. Others, who didn't realize that her hair was in extentions, have been shocked to see that I "cut" it! :) Hee hee.

Punk's had a little re-do of his own. The canvas bins that he's had to store his toys since he was eensy were getting somewhat raggedy (and, truth be told, somewhat dangerous, what with their frames poking out). Punk was quite concerned about the state of affairs and begged me to get some new bins. I opted for less-cute-but-more-practical plastic tubs this time. They have lids, so they're stackable. And, they were on sale.

Punk was bummed that he had to wait until after his nap yesterday afternoon to start organizing the menagerie. But, he got a great start on things before we headed to a meeting at church after dinner. Because I get to talking and can't pull myself away, we didn't get home from that meeting until after 9 PM. We hustled the kiddinkidinks into their beds and did the quick version of the bedtime routine.

I was reading myself to sleep around 11:00 when I heard some bumps and thumps next door. I expected my wee one to pop out and use the bathroom. Nope. Just more bumping and thumping.

I opened the door and there he was, in the glow of his night light, standing there next to his train table, with the guiltiest look on his face.

Me: "Whatcha doin', Bud-bud?"

Punk: "I couldn't sleep. The train table was such a mess. I had to clean it up."

Me, scooting him toward his bed: "Oh. Well, I'm glad that you want to keep your things neat and tidy, but it's way past your bedtime. It's even past MY bedtime! I'll make sure you have time to finish this up tomorrow, okay?"

Punk: "Okay, Mama. Good night."

Me: "Good night, Punkinhead."

Gee, was he industrious--there's not much left to do today!

Round Two Timeline

9/24/08 Home study update home visit for Ghana adoption
10/15/08 Dossier sent to AOHG
10/15/08 I600A application sent to USCIS
10/30/08 First heard about possible domestic private adoption
11/18/08 Last spoke with contact about possible domestic adoption; expected to hear back about meeting with birthmother
12/3/08 Withdrew application from AOHG
1/6/09 Found out another family had been chosen for possible domestic adoption
1/21/09 USCIS fingerprinting appointment
1/8/09 Received USCIS fingerprinting appointment notice
4/11/09 Sent Pre-Application to Covenant Care Adoptions for Domestic Infant Adoption program
6/8/09 Social worker visit to update home study from International to Domestic
7/24/09 Received completed home study update
8/25/09 Went "on the list" for birthfamilies to choose from
4/28/10 Found out a birth mom had chosen us
5/8/10 Met the birth mom
5/11/10 Got the call that birth mom changed her mind
5/19/10 Birth mom's scheduled c-section
11/30/10 Visit from DSS sw about foster parenting
11/30/10 Got the call that another birth mom had chosen us
12/21/10 Met with the birth mom
1/15/11 @1:42 PM BB was born!
1/19/11 ICPC (interstate) paperwork sent to GA for approval
1/31/11 ICPC Clearance Approved
2/10/11 Placement Ceremony and Pup comes home!!!!
8/3/11 It's Official! Pup's Adoption Decree was issued