HAIR WE GO... AGAIN!

My children have a lot of hair. A LOT. Here are a few pictures of Khyri through the years before we gave him a big boy haircut.

Khyri at 7 months

Here are some recent pictures of baby girl Kielle. Aren't her puffs super cute?!!

Khyri's hair was thicker than Kielle's - way more strands per inch. I literally could not see his scalp! Ahhh - the luscious thick locs. The beauty of the fluffy pigtails. But, at some point - the hair has to be...WASHED.

Actually, let's be clear - the washing isn't the hard part. The tough part is the doggone combing once the hair is wet. Lord.Lord.Lord. Let me paint the picture...

old school!

After 2 weeks of procrastination, I finally attempted to address the situation on top of Kielle's head which had gotten completely out of control. She had two puffs and one braid in the back. The back braid had all kinds of lint and was starting to get matted. It needed immediate attention. On Sunday I decided that Tuesday was going to be the day I washed her hair. Tuesday came and went. Wednesday I just looked at her - defeated. Thursday I had renewed spirit. I washed her hair with a deep conditioner. I took it back old school. I used the Queen Helene orange conditioner in the jar - I know right ?! ooollldd school!

I just knew this was going to be easy breezy once her hair was nicely conditioned and cleaned. I thought I would be able to glide the comb through her hair and magically perfectly coiffed tendrils would cascade down her forehead. Nope. She wouldn't let me comb it. That's right. This little girl refused to sit still. She moaned and cried and yelled and hollered - arrrgghh it was so annoying hahahaha. So I gave up. Bad move. This is how she looked when we went to pick up Khyri right after washing her hair - cute right?!!?

Well this is Kielle one day later... FRANKENSTEIN.

 
You'd think I'd be motivated to do something with her head finally right?!?! nope. I was seriously scuuured. But I resolved that Saturday, a whole week from my original date, was going to be a day of reckoning.

Instead of washing her hair in the shower, like we usually do, I  put Kielle and Khyri into the tub. My thinking was that she would distracted playing in the water with her bother. She had no idea what was about to happen.

ready to jump into the bathtub - clueless

I hit her quick with the water as soon as she got in. BAM. She didn't even know what was going on. I was stealth - quick like a jaguar. hahaha

Then I put in the cream of nature detangling shampoo - again ooollldd school. While Khyri "swam" in the tub, Kielle played in the shampoo saying "Bubbles where are you!?!"  :-) This isn't bad after all. Why was I so afraid?

I shampooed her hair twice and used the hand held shower attachment to rinse her hair clean. You know my munchkins love a sprinkler, so they thought it was playtime for real! I didn't mind though as long as I was able to get her hair clean; Khyri just got some extra tub time - lucky duck :-)

When they were all rinsed and clean, everyone piled out of the bathtub. I let the munchkins run around with the towels on their heads like they had superhero capes for awhile. While they did that I went downstairs and put the Blue's Clues Alphabet Power DVD in. Distraction. Is. Key. The water worked to distract Kielle while I washed her hair, and now Blue would distract her while I combed it. Perfect plan.

I think she knows something is about to go down

Once everyone was dressed and moisturized we headed downstairs to start. Here are some pictures. There were tons of tears mixed with the alphabet song about 3 times. I know I got some cross-eyed looks not only from Kielle but also Khyri who was mad because she was making a lot of noise and he couldn't hear his video. hahahahah. He is a man of so much compassion - not! ahahah. My thighs go a good work out because I had to do the super grip to keep Kielle from running away. I quickly remembered why I don't like this part of the process.

first part in - and we're already battling

one braid down

memba (yes memba) this comb? No joke!

I used a rat-tail comb to make my parts straight

my cornrow skills are still up to snuff!

momma's got skills!

All done!

Blue's Clues came in handy. It totally worked!

Kielle channeling her inner Cleo from Set It Off

There was a lot of mumbling, yelling and babbling through out the whole ordeal. I'm sure Kielle said some things that aren't allowed to be said on network television. hahahahah I can only imagine what she's gonna say when she actually knows the bad words. Oh the battle with hair :-(

I didn't wrap her head tonight so who knows what these cornrows are gonna look like in the morning. I know now that I need to just keep her hair braided or at least pulled back all the time. I love the puffs, but they may only come out for special occasions. Well actually, maybe if I comb her hair more regularly, like say twice a week, then she will get used to it and it won't be so much of a hassle. I am going to commit to washing her hair once a week though for sure. I'm claiming it right now... Every Wednesday afternoon Kielle will have a new 'do :-)

TIME IS... SANITY

Recently I was talking to a friend in NYC who has twins *shout out to Victor and Veronica* and we were talking about how we just don't seem to have enough time in the day to get anything done. I've gotten much better at getting the basics done - eating, bathing, brushing my teeth, etc. but I still need help managing my time to fit everything else in. Over the years I have come up with a few time saving tips that have helped keep me sane.

Pile Up
I have two piles in the house, one downstairs and one upstairs. My downstairs pile is where I put all of the things that need to to go upstairs and the upstairs pile acts in the opposite way. As I walk around downstairs during the day picking up toys that have ended up in the dining room or clothes that have miraculously walked themselves downstairs, I pick up items and put them in the downstairs pile. Its located right on the first step so that I can't ignore it. Once in the afternoon and then again when the munchkins have gone to sleep I haul the pile upstairs and put it all away. This system cuts down the amount of time I spend running up and down the stairs trying to put things in their right place. 

Sippy Cup Ready
There is nothing worse than having a screaming child, who apparently is dying from dehydration, tugging on your leg for something to drink. To cut down the time I spend grabbing the sippy cup, filling half of it with water and then adding juice I make watered down juice containers ahead of time. When we buy  juice, I pour half of it into a pitcher and then mix both containers with water. To avoid confusion, I keep the watered down containers under the shelf that holds the sippy cups. So now when Khyri comes in dying of thirst I can quickly grab a sippy cup and fill it with my 70% water and 30% juice beverage.


Power Shower
When I need to wash Kielle's hair I take her into the shower with me. While I bathe she plays by the drain with some toys. When I'm done I scoop her up and start shampooing away. This saves me some time and effort because inevitably if I wash Kielle's hair in the bathtub, without me in the shower, I will get super wet and have to spend time changing my clothes. If we're in the shower together, everybody is wet from the git go :-)

The Staple: Leggings
My friend Danielle put me on to leggings last year. I hadn't really thought about them as a clothing choice for Kielle, but I have been reformed - or shall I say informed. Basic color leggings are a go-to for Kielle's wardrobe these days. My time spent picking out her outfits is cut in half because I only need to select the shirts. Once the shirt is chosen I can quickly grab a colored legging for a super cute look.

Even with these few tips I still loose my mind 2 days a week on average :-) hahahhaha.

GENDER ROLES OR GENDER RULES?

For most of their lives Khyri and Kielle have been gender neutral. It started when we had their baby showers. Since the Hubs and I didn't find out if our children were going to be male or female, we had gender neutral parties. Everything was yellow, orange, and green.

Growing up, I was a tomboy and into "boy" things like little league and bugs. I don't want my children to grow up in boxes labeled "girl" and "boy". As my munchkins are getting older, it is getting more difficult to shield them from the bounds of society's gender roles. Our first hurdle - overcoming assigned colors.

I tell people all the time that I like shopping for boys clothes more than girls clothes. I like the variety of colors that are offered for boys clothing. Think about it - boy clothing comes in blue, red, green, brown, orange, gray, black, etc. What colors do you see when you buy girls clothing? Pink, pink, and more pink. Every now and then you'll see lavender or yellow strewn about, but mostly you see pink. Why are girls limited to one color? It would be different if all of the boys' clothing was blue and all of the girls' clothing was pink. Then at least both genders would be limited to one color, but this is not the case. Girls are limited to pink and boys have a whole rainbow, minus pink and lavender, to wear.

I know this is a leap, but to me this is a subtle social construct that influences or rather limits the potential for girls. Just looking at clothing options little girls are nudged to believe that they can only wear one or two specific colors. I'm no psychologist or child development specialist, but how does that affect what they think is possible for their career choices? If Kielle is only shown pink does this discourage her from trying on blue or gray? Will she feel that she is somehow sub-par because she doesn't fit into the color construct if her favorite colors are actually red and blue? As she grows up, will she believe that women can only have certain careers?

As I searched the Toys R Us page putting together the munchkins wishlist for Christmas, I noticed that a lot of toys now are coming in 'girl' and 'boy' colors.  I found this to be confusing. Why is there a need for a pink laptop? Why can't girls use the green laptop? Is green now only a boys color? Do they type different letters? Is emphasis being put on the laptop being pretty and not functional?

Most of the boy toys come in primary colors. Now supposedly primary colors are the first colors that the human eye begins to distinguish as an infant grows. So by creating pastel or "girl" colored infant toys are we setting little girls back from the beginning? My good friend bought Khyri a huge set of Mega Bloks for his first Chirstmas. The ones we have are primary colored, but I also noticed that they sell pastel colors. Kielle plays with the primary colored blocks with no problem.

Now I'm saying that there doesn't need to be variety. I'm all for different color choices and more options. I just don't think that there should be gender specific options based on something as simple as color. If the easels below were designed differently because girls are shorter during their toddler years or something of that nature I'd be ok, but to simply change the color of the easels doesn't make sense to me.

A friend of mine did point out that pink toys are now being made because there is a demand for them. She said that these toys may actually encourage girls to play with toys other than dolls since legos, tonka, trucks, etc. come in pink. I understand this position, but to me I think you need to look at the beginning of the issue. Pink toys are needed because girls are conditioned to believe that pink toys are for girls. If girls are not conditioned to believe these things, then the need for 'separate but equal' colored toys would not be necessary. Children truly are born colorblind. They have no preconceived notions about colors. It is the society, mostly marketers, that create this construct for young girls from the very beginning.

Is there an assumption that the 'girl' colors are softer and therefor inferior or should young girls accept this color construct and redefine it themselves? In my opinion, the color pink brings along with it a notion of not as serious, not as strong, and not as educational as the traditional 'boy' colors. Thinking about redefining the color pink led me to think why don't colleges have 'girl' colors? There is no university that has pink as a school color. Even the all female colleges have use traditionally 'male' colors. I guess my concern is that I don't want Kielle to feel like she can only wear pink and only do 'girl' things and for Khyri to be limited to boy things. I applaud my parents for encouraging me to experience any and everything whether it was 'girlish' or 'boyish' *shout out to Tom's Pizzeria Sharks (my little league baseball team)* Me and the hubby will try to make sure that the munchkins are not completely swayed by color rules and supposed gender roles. It is going to be an uphill battle though for sure.

So, is there something there? I don't know. I believe that for toys the primary colors should be the universal colors for learning and fun. For clothing I want to start a clothing store for little girls called "Everything But Pink" hahahahahha. As for the Christmas wishlist, I'm looking at the doctor's kits below and will probably lean towards getting the 'serious' one in primary green. Will Kielle play with it if its not pink? I don't know for sure, but my guess is yes - a toy is a toy.