Riley's First Braids

Growing up as a female, you would think I would be awesome at braiding hair, picking out clothes, doing my nails, you know, all the girly things that us women are supposed to be good at. I remember my friend in high school, Lisa, learning how to french braid on a Barbie doll. She finally figured out how to do it on herself and I thought is was the coolest thing. As it turns out, I'm quite the opposite. Now, I'm definitely not brutish, but I just never learned all those great hair techniques or how to keep my nails looking spectacular. I have to rely on a great stylist (which after 20 years, I finally found one!) and trips to the nail salon. Unfortunately, my budget doesn't allow for constant trips to get a pedicure, so I do it myself. I'm actually getting better at it and not painting half my toe in the process. Yay, me!

Riley came to me asking for her hair to be braided. After I gave her a stunned look for a couple of minutes, I finally scrounged up some hair accessories and started to work. It took several tries, but I finally got it braided. Of course, these are definitely not photos you will see on Pinterest.com. If you are a member of the Pinterest craze, you know what I'm talking about. Pinterest is a site where you can "pin" things that you like and use them for inspiration. It's an extremely popular site, and has garnered a lot of attention. If you are on it, you will find hundreds of hairstyle photos of waterfall braids, boho braids, fishbone braids, loose, twist, side, you name it kind of braids. Sorry to the french braid, but that's so passé now after seeing what's on Pinterest.

I can not do all those cool braids, so I ended up giving Riley some pig tail braids. Well, let's just say I tried. And you know what? She was happy. More than happy. She was pleased as punch! She didn't care that the part in the back was completely crooked (well, I didn't bother to tell her!), or that I couldn't find the proper hair accessories to hold her braids. She thought she was the bees knees, and I think she was!