Confessions Of A Hair Challenged Momma

Once again, it is the day of dance class photos and I am in a panic.

I have a confession:  I am horrible at doing my own child's hair. 

And I mean really horrible...as in, I completely suck at it.

My whole life I have been hair challenged, unable to whip my own ginormously challenging mane of rambunctious waves into anything resembling an orderly coiffure.  As I've gotten older, I've gravitated toward more easily wrangled haircuts and, more recently, miraculously found a genius stylist who can cut my straw and spin it into well-managed gold.

But my daughter's hair?

It is the exact opposite of mine.  Stick straight and fine rather than hefty and wavy.  Even though she has a lot of hair just like her momma, it is impossible to keep in any sort of tidy order because it all likes to fly away all over the place.

Last night, it took me over an hour just to get her wet hair up in those evil foam curlers so that she could wake up with a halo of curly ringlets.  My hope was that the curl would relax just right by the time pictures rolled around this evening.

But, alas, I am curler challenged.




An entire side of her hair didn't really take the curl very well, and sort of limply hung in a slight wave.  That was first thing this morning.  By the end of school?  It was limp and headed back toward straight.


Right now, she's sitting with hot curlers in her hair -- which I sprayed within an inch of its life with a curling spray that the lady at Sally's swore to me would help -- for attempt number two.

We have pictures in an hour and a half, and I'm going to make my poor child sit in these hot curlers until then, hoping against hope that this will work.

Is there some sort of class that hair challenged mommas can take?  Because I could surely use one.

I see other little girls with their perfect hair in ringlets or braids or those beautiful high pony tails that look so sleek and well-managed, and my poor child gets the lavish treatment of "here, wear this slip-on headband."

Seriously, I can barely get a barrette to stay in her hair, let alone make it look stylishly placed.  It is pitiful.

Is it just me?  Please tell me I am not alone in my hair incompetence. 

I've never been much of a girlie-girl and I think that is part of the problem.  While other girls were sitting in front of the mirror playing with their friends' hair and trading styling tips, I was sitting over on the side with my nose in a book paying no attention whatsoever.  And now I'm paying for it.

I realize this isn't a huge problem.  It isn't as though world peace or community hunger is hanging in the balance. 

But just this once, just this one time, please oh please oh please let my daughter's hair look like well-styled loveliness instead of a scary pile of straw.


(Photo via gerardagudo.)