Syd Gives Herself a Braid Out

By now, Syd has become a pro when it comes to washing and detangling her hair without assistance from Mom. Unfortunately, she's not able to do many styles on her own. We decided to work on that and Syd did a braid out by herself for the first time.

She started by removing her Breast Cancer Awareness style. It had been in for about a week and a half and was very fuzzy. Her hair was still clean and didn't have any build up, so we moved straight from one style to the other without a wash in between.

I told her not to remove the entire style right away. She has a lot of hair and I thought it would be easier to work in sections, so she started by only removing the back section of the style. Then she split the back in half, putting the left part into a big loose braid to keep it out of the way. She focused on the back right section of hair first.

Now I had her divide that section of her hair into fourths again so that there will be four braids made out of this section. Just before braiding each section, she dampened it with a spray bottle and added a bit of Curls Creme Brule. Then she finger detangled, ran her denman through the section to distribute the product evenly, and braided it up. I stressed to her that she needed to start the braid as close to her scalp as possible and keep the braid tight all the way down.

Before long, that back right section was in four braids.

She did the same thing to the back right section and then moved up to the top, where the process was the same.

After what she said felt like forever (although the whole thing took less time than I expected), she put the last braid in.

She slept in those braids and removed them before school the next morning. I didn't get pictures of the removal process. We were a little rushed getting ready for the day, but she got the braids out while keeping most of the definition.

Since she had a hard time getting some of the braids close to her scalp, her roots were pretty fuzzy. She pulled the front half up, secured it with an ouchless band, and headed off to school.

Braid out success!

"I need to look old-fashioned"

When it comes to Syd's hair, I really feel like I've been slacking in the creativity department lately. A lot of that is due to our lack of time to invest in an elaborate hairstyle. But this week, we had a different situation limiting us. Syd is spending her entire day at the State Capital building reenacting scenes from the 1800's for the general public. The goal is to make it seem as authentic as possible. After 4 months of practice and so much attention paid to all the costume details, an intricate style would just not be appropriate. When I asked Syd what she thought we should do, all she said was "I need to look old-fashioned."

My first thought was just to do two simple braids, but Syd really isn't a fan of that style anymore. I still did two braids, but we jazzed it up just a little. I started by making a center part and putting cornrows along the hairline.

In the back, I just pulled the two sides into low pigtails and braided them. To add a little interest, I didn't just put one big braid on each side. I sectioned each side into three braids and then braided those braids together.

The style only took a few minutes (as you can probably tell by the not-so-straight parts) but it seems to be appropriate for the activities of the day. We may or may not change it up for the remainder of the week. I'll be sure to let you know if we do!

Sorry about the quality of the pictures when she's in costume - I snapped them with my phone just before she went out the door.