speaking love to her, in the language of flat twists

When I blogged about Patience's yarn twists, she didn't yet have enough hair for any other style. She barely had enough, as it was, to anchor the yarn.

Extensions have never been our end goal for her, though. On Facebook back in April (side note: it's June? how'd that happen?!?), I shared this:

She's been rocking a short 'do ever since.

And I'm not ashamed to admit that I shed a few tears when a friend from church brought this to me the next week. 

Yep, that's my fridge: a little Patu in a church craft frame, a little Lupita collage, and some dinos and a fish to hold it all up.

One morning shortly after we removed the yarn, she looked at herself in the mirror, paused, and then proclaimed, "Mama, I look fabulous."

And she does.

Thanks again to the power of youTube (video at the end), I decided to try some flat twists with their own hair, sans yarn. Flat twists are kind of like cornrows, with the main difference that the hair is twisted rather than braided. 

I attempted some cornrows the other day, and let's just let the lack of post or pictures speak for itself.

Yeah. Mama needs some more practice on that. 

After that, Patience wasn't interested in being my guinea pig, so this time I started with Patu. One twist in on her sister, I heard, "Mama, will you do mine next?" She loves her TWA - that's "teeny weeny afro" in black hair lingo - so she just wanted a couple flat twists in the front.

The butterfly barrettes aren't a must as the twists stay in on their own, but she likes the pop of color.

As I shared last time, hair isn't just hair for Patience. 

Really, it's not for any black woman, but that's a whole 'nother post. While this white mama can't fully understand all those ins and outs, I trust my black friends and take their word for something I might never fully comprehend.

But as the daughter of a hairdresser - not me, her first mother - she learned that part of a mama's love was hair time. But me? I'm super white, if you haven't noticed. So committing to her meant committing to learning a whole new hair language.

Because? It's her love language.

The style on Patu is a little more rough, as I started with her first and as her soft looser curls don't lend themselves to twisting as much as Patience's tight coarser spirals do. 

And? I need some more work on parts, especially in her hair... but grace, y'all. Because have I mentioned that I'm white and I'm learning?

Oh my gracious! I could just eat her up with a spoon.

As I learn, sometimes I have to borrow some confidence from this lovely lady:

Because she's growing into an amazing young lady with plenty of confidence to spare. As she told me tonight as I was getting started on her hair, "Don't worry, Mommy. You've got this."

LOVE.

~+~

As promised, here's the tutorial I used to learn the technique.