Girls just wanna have curls

On the way home from dance class earlier this week, Peyton told me she wanted me to give her a new hair style.

What do you mean? Do you want to get it cut short?!!

She mumbled something from the back seat, something about curls. Ah! Curls. Oh elusive curls.

Peyton, sweet one, you have noticed that you have straight, straight hair, and you have already begun searching for the answer to that, as if there is one.

I know how she feels. What we straight-haired ones won't do for some curls, yo. When I was younger, I tried sleeping with pink sponge rollers for that soft, bouncy look, for formal pictures usually. But that was only the beginning. I used hot rollers, velcro rollers, various sizes of curling irons and round brushes, Hot Sticks, crimping irons and, of course, the perm. But then you have perms for thick hair, perms for fine hair, perms for medium length hair, spiral perms, etc! I don't remember any details now, but I do remember that I knew a good bit about perms...and hair spray. Thanks, Mom.

Well, I offered Peyton a deal: braids. That's an easy place to start. She'll need her own bathroom before we start collecting all the various other curl-making tools and Product. (Yes, when you are raised in a deep Southern hair salon, you tend to learn a few things. Like, for starters it's not called a salon. You say, "I need to go up to the shop to get my roots done") Also, you don't say when you need more gel and hairspray that you need more gel and hairspray. No, nooo. You say, "I need more product." And I do mean pro-duct, without an "s".  Girls in the humid south can't get NO curls without proper might-as-well-capitalize-it-Product in the hair. Your curls falling out too soon? Girl, put some more Product in that mess. Curls not curly enough? Need some more Product. Curls not soft enough after all that Product? Wellllllll, believe it or not, they have Product for that.

So Thursday night, after she'd had her bath I started braiding my four-year-old's hair, so she could have her new hair style.

I'm not sure it turned out like she was expecting; she was a little short on comments about the after-effect. At least she learned this valuable lesson that all of us straight-haired ones know: Man-made curls never do live up to our expectations, even with goooood Product. Do they?

But when asked, she said she liked her new style. 
Harper wanted in on it, so I gave her one braid on top where her hair is thickest. She slept in that braid for two nights. Here's her new style...

As for me and my house, we shall have no perms.