"Sit down, Babydoll. Daddy's doing your hair today."
Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say out loud and in English. Maybe one or the other but not both. But the thing is, Babydoll sometimes has a thing about rocking her natural hair. She like a certain look and if it's not just so she prefers to go with a different look like a wig, sew-ins, braids, or something else. And do not get me misconstrued here; she looks beautiful in them. She can rock those wigs better than most professional actresses I've seen.
But I wanted her natural hair this particular day, and said as much. When I asked, she made the pouty face and looked down at her shoes while chewing her plush little bottom lip.
"It doesn't look good enough for Daddy to see," she said.
It actually hurt me when she said that. I can't lie: in the deep little pit where my heart allegedly hides out, I felt a distinct and sharp sort of stabbing pain. And I honestly became angry for a moment - not at her, no. Not at anything she'd done, because she'd done nothing wrong. I was angry at anyone who'd dare say my baby girl's natural hair didn't look pretty. And if she didn't like it, I was willing to rectify the situation.
And so I told her to sit down and let Daddy do her hair. I'd never expected those words out of my mouth until I had a child of my own, but the way she'd looked had gotten to me. And so I spoke not a word at first: I merely grabbed a couch cushion and tossed it on the floor and blurted out those two simple sentences.
She looked a bit surprised at first, then glanced from the cushion to my eyes. I never know when I'm making the face or giving what my Babydoll likes to call 'that look'. She glanced at my face and the way she hopped into place o that cushion let me know I was indeed giving her that look' the look that said, in no uncertain terms, that what I said was no suggestion but a demand. I let her sit there, then patted her head and told her to have the wig off when I got back.
When I returned, had a bag full of hair supplies that I'd acquired over the years; shampoo and conditioner, oils for the scalp, tut combs, regular combs, brushes, hair clips I used on my own head sometimes. In my other hand I held a simple beige towel, something that wouldn't change color. I sat down with my baby girl's head between my legs and grumbled slightly to myself, looking over her hair and testing the teture to the best of my ability. I was no professional, but I had a younger sister and a mother who showed me how to care for hair quite painfully over the years. It didn't take me long to figure out a plan of attack and how to progress.
"This is probably gonna hurt, Babydoll," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "Try to be a big girl for me, will you?"
"I'll try, Daddy," she said, nodding her head.
It was one of those - what my parents would call an all-day sucker - when it came to working on her hair. I took her to the sink with me to wash out her hair and scrub her scalp roughly, giving her head a nice and therapeutic deep clean. I tried to be both as thorough and yet as gentle as possible, attempting to make as much casual conversation as I could while focusing on her head and keeping her still so none of the soap or conditioner got into her pretty Smokey Quartz eyes as I worked on her hair getting as clean as possible first.
I gave her the towel and brought her back to the couch, hair still a bit wet, and began parting her hair and working on her scalp a bit more. Again, it was one of those moments where I attempted to be both as gentle as possible but just as thorough. She'd been quite still when I worked on her hair at the sink, for the most part - it only took a bit of direction to keep her from squirming all about like the fidgety little thing she is. Before I was even 1/8
th
done with her hair I paused to turn the Netflix on, letting her catch a bit of some anime she'd been begging me to check out while I went to work. She still flinched every so often, and made those plaintive whimpers and whines as I continued to separate and oil her hair and scalp. She winced and hissed through her teeth some, but was otherwise very quiet and intent on the TV.
"Is this gonna take a long time, Daddy?" she asked, hissing through her teeth as I tugged on her hair to move her head back into place.
"It looks like it, sugar-lump..." I said, taking out a rubber band to hold part of her hair out of the way. "You got a lot of hair here, and it's just like you."
"Like me?" she asked.
"Yup," I said. "This hair is tough, strong, pretty, healthy... and stubborn as a mule, just like my little princess."
She giggled a bit at that and it seemed to ease things for us, at least for a while. It was relatively smooth sailing for the next 30 minutes or so, though with the occasional wince or hiss from her. She actually yelped when I yanked a bit of hair into place to get her to stay in place while I worked.
"Owwie!" she yelped, pausing to look up crossly at me. "Daddy!"
"Little girl, I pull your hair much harder than this on an almost nightly basis..." I teased at her. "Are you telling me this hurts now?"
"Yes!" she said, huffing and crossing her arms. "It did hurt, Daddy, it did."
"Alright, alright... I'll try to be more gentle."
"... Well.. maybe you don't need to..." she muttered, arms still folded. "I mean... I just said it hurt, not that I didn't like it."
I froze for a moment, then chuckled and got back to work on her hair. "As you command, my princess..."
To be fair, I must admit that I'm far from a professional when it comes to doing hair. Part of what I know to do is self-taught from research on my own hair, part of it is gleaned from watching my mother, aunts, and sister working on their hair or other people's hair, and the rest... I just wing it based on what looks right. I got a bit better as I went along with it, if I do say so myself: partially because Babydoll got more used to me working on her hair, and stopped fighting me at every turn; and partially because I was working on her hair enough to get into a rhythm and a pattern.
By the time Netflix asked me if I was still watching the anime, she'd dozed off and drifted into dream land, looking so gentle and serene it was absolutely adorable. I couldn't help but smile warmly at her as I used my thighs to keep her head in place while I finished up the rest of her hair. I kissed her forehead, then continued to separate and moisturize her hair and scalp while humming to myself.
She slept on and I kept going, soon enough finishing up with one last rubber band and a bit more oil and conditioner o her hair and scalp to come through her hair. By the time I was ready to take her rubber bands off and finish styling her hair on up, she was just starting to wake up, and as she yawned and stirred I put the finishing touches on the styling as well.
"Hop on up, Sugar-lump," I encouraged, smiling warmly at her. "I want you to see what Daddy was able to do while you fell asleep."
She got to her feet and stretched a bit, walking with me to the bathroom to check herself out in the mirror. I was actually a bit nervous as I checked out her reactions to the mini-fro poof I'd given her. After a bit of mugging and posing, examining her reflection at all possible angles, I finally managed up my courage to ask her the simple question:
"What do you think?"
She spun around and hugged me, pressing a kiss to my lips so vigorously that slammed me to the back of the bathroom wall with an audible
thud
. I felt the air leaving my body leaving my chest as she held on until I was light-headedly able to outright force her to let me breathe.
