BEAUTY SCHOOL DROPOUT

Would you pay $15.00 to condition your toddler’s hair? I realize that is a pretty good-sized chunk of change to put down on a little head that probably has less hair than a marine after the first week of boot camp. If I promised that your little imp’s hair would be softer and shinier than you’ve ever seen it, would that change your mind? Trust me, after this conditioning treatment, Gracie’s hair is beautiful! Now before you raise your eyebrows and start to wonder if I have: a) completely gone off the deep end or 2) joined some club that sells designer beauty products for babies, let me assure you that I had no intention of conditioning Gracie’s hair last week. Absolutely no intention! What started out as an innocent craft project ending up being a hairdresser’s (ummm, I mean a mommy’s) huge pain in the neck. In the end, we ended up with beautiful toddler hair, a nice craft project, and a nice lesson learned.

Sometimes, I feel like an old pro at being a mother. I’m comfortable doing a lot of things that in the beginning of this adventure seemed impossible to me: getting Gracie out the door on time, cooking up dinner and dessert, cleaning, and washing a load of clothes all in the time it takes to watch one Wiggles DVD (couldn’t those guys jump around, wave their hands, and sing their mind-numbing songs for longer than 18 minutes?) Who’d have thought that a simple craft project would knock me off my prideful pillar (the one where I think, “hey, I can do this – there’s really nothing to it”).

Lately, I’ve been searching for things to do with Gracie in the afternoons. The heat here, as it is in most of the country these days, is unbearable. So, we don’t spend too much time playing outside. She plays well alone, and I usually give her ample time to do that and I do let her watch one of her movies way more often than I should, but I still like for us to do something “non-electronic” together every day. Sometimes, it’s simple stuff like playing the Parrott Game where for a good fifteen minutes, I run through her entire vocabulary and get her to parrot her words back to me. Of course, this only works until I get back to a word that she’s already said. Then, she looks at me as if I’m a creature from the planet Boredom, clucks her tongue at me her eyes saying “Mommy, I’ve already been there, done that” and toddles off to another room. So, we’ve been doing a lot of crafty things – coloring, making paper bag puppets, stickers, stickers, and more stickers. Last Friday, I decided to let her try her hand at painting.

Now, I don’t mind making a big mess – I mean if you’ve ever seen me cook, scrapbook, or sew, you know that I’m one of those people that believes the bigger the mess, the more successful the project. But, cleaning up those messes is not my biggest thrill. I didn’t relish the idea of cleaning up after Gracie’s first attempt at being the next Picasso. So, I took the easy way out. I paid twice the amount of regular finger paints for ¼ of the amount of Crayola’s Color Wonder paint. If you haven’t seen these color wonder things, they’re pretty cool. They don’t color (or paint) on anything except for the special Color Wonder paper (which of course costs twice as much for ¼ the amount of regular paper). The markers and the coloring book have provided hours of entertainment for Gracie at home and in the car, sparing the carpet in the living and the van from being decorated with rainbow colors. I’m not really sure how they work – I’m sure my sister the chemist could give you a better explanation, but somehow, the plain colored markers or paints magically turn to different colors when applied to the special paper.

So, I pulled out the special paper and the new pack of six different paints, strapped Gracie in her highchair, and sat down to start painting. I noticed that the paint was really greasy, almost like stage makeup. But, it worked – Gracie went to town painting. She was having a blast! The only thing I wasn’t too fond of was the only place that the paint colors would show up was between the lines on the objects on the page. So, it looked to the untrained eye as if my little baby was some kind of craft prodigy that could paint a perfect duck without ever straying outside of the lines. I don’t really like the precedent that sets, but I let that go. She was smiling and laughing, running her chubby fingers through the Crisco-consistency paint. Of course, to me, it was a Kodak moment. With her safely ensconced in her chair, I ran to the other part of the house and grabbed my camera. Now, I know that some of you wizened mothers out there are thinking, “Ah my child, listen and listen well – NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, leave your child alone with paint.” OK, wizened mothers, where were you when I went to get the camera?????

I came back into the kitchen, expecting to take a picture of my daughter happily painting. The paints, all six little tubs, were gone. You might think that I was worried that Gracie ate the paint. Nope, it was immediately obvious where the paint was – in her hair! She looked like a combination of Edward Scissorhands and Pat Benatar (if she’d stuck her hand in an electric socket). All I could do was laugh – at that point it was still funny. I took a couple of pictures, and then scooped her up for a bath and a much-needed hairwashing.

Now, the package of the paints said that the clear residue comes easily off of most substances. Hair, apparently, is not one of those substances. After four hair washes, she still looked like, well there’s no other way to say it – a grease monkey, literally, a grease monkey. I decided that her baby shampoo must not be dense enough to get the grease out. So, we headed to the store and got some toddler shampoo (did you know there was such a thing?) that was thicker than her baby stuff. Four washings with it and her hair still stayed in what ever position I put it – straight up in the air, cute little greasy pin curls…. Now, I did what any good mother would do – I called my mom. After laughing for a while at my expense (I guess mothers never get over that do they – I’m constantly laughing at Gracie), she suggested putting baby powder in her hair to take some of the grease out. Okay, this may have been a good idea, but I didn’t heed it. Remember, this paint is like Crisco and adding powder to it reminded me too much of flour. And what do you get when you mix Crisco and flour (and of course a little milk) – that’s right – biscuits! And the way my luck was running, I could just imagine the top of her head turning into the consistency of biscuit dough. And I was sure that she would earn the nickname “Biscuit Head” and who knows how long it would have taken her (and me) to live that down…..

So, we just kept washing her hair and by Tuesday (four days and I don’t know how many washings later), her hair is back to normal – well, actually better than normal – it’s soft and shiny. Do I have any takers yet on that $15.00 toddler conditioning treatment (the cost includes paints, paper, two bottles of shampoo, and twenty washings). For that price you get beautiful toddler hair, a lovely piece of artwork created by your little darling, and for good measure, I’ll throw in a couple of pictures and this little piece of advice - stick to "messy" paints - they're a lot easier to clean up!