Well Gilly's dreads had their 2 month birthday yesterday! They are coming along nicely I would have to say.

She wears her cute little striped shower cap for baths most nights and we washherdreadiesonce a week using a nice nag champa dread shampoo bar that just smells lovely! Its lathers up so nicely and I just wash lift up all those knotty locks and scrub in between and around her roots. Finally we let the warm water just rinse the suds down her dreads and leaving it's sweet smell behind. I'm sure as the summer goes on and she becomes sweaty in the summer sun, more hair washings will be in order, but for now this is all we do... with exception of yesterday that is.

It was lunch time at her fine little pre-school and the kids were sitting around eagerly helping to pass one another their lunches, getting help with drinks and the like. One of Gills very sweet Teachers, Ms. Sue, came around and asked all the kids if they'd like some apple sauce. Gill said "No thank you" and as Ms. Sue walked on pass Gilly and over to serve some one else a big heaping scoop of sweet, sticky applesauce, a GREAT BIG PLOP of it fell off teh spoon and landed on a kids head...

but not just any kids head...

Not on Mic's head, with her short, easy to wash bob...

not on Tanner's head, where if could have easily been wiped up from his tight crew cut...

No, that sweet, lumpy, deliciously sticky, cinnamony applesauce landed square on the head of the kid with dread locks!

Gilly burst into tears knowing that she'd been asked to try not to get too much in her dreads and, no doubt, the onloooking caretakers did all they could to stifle their laughs and giggles as this poor little girl sat there with a plop of applesauce in her 2 month old dreads.

She INSISTED that she could NOT get them wet, and even though her teachers were fairly certain that I wash them (which we do! and she knows we do!), well they wanted to try to comfort her as best they could so instead of washing the spot, the used a baby wipe and sat there and picked out chuncks of applesauce from between her roots and down her little locks.

When I picked her up and heard the story all I could do was laugh.

"OF COURSE it was Gill... OF COURSE the one kid with the head full of applesauce was the one kid who has dreads and OF COURSE we hade JUST washed them yesterday!!!", I thought to myself.

I bet she was quite the sight! She was a good sport about it all in the end. We extra washed and we extra scrubbed the sticky spot on the top of her head and then extra extra extra rinsed.... the last thing we need is fermenting appley bits in my 4 years olds hair! I'm fairly certain we got it all out and alls well that ends well!

Happy 2 months lil dread head!

My Gilly Bean was one of those nearly bald babies . She had just that little tuft of brown fuzz on top of her round little head and it just seemed to take forever to grow.

But grow it did! And once it started it had no intention of stopping! It seems hard to think back to a time when she didn't have a long flowing mess of dark brown hair upon her little head.

But brushing that hair was something that no one looked forward to. It was WELL beyond the usual annoyance for a small child, Gill would cry and sob whenshe was having her hair brushed and it was getting to the point where it seemed more like torture for my little lady.

Her little spirit was happiest when her locks were wild and free!

In May of 2011, at 3 years old, we started talking about Dreadlocks. We looked at lots of pictures and talked a lot about it. Gill is in a very awesome day care and a lot of her teachers and the people who care for (and about) her at her school were all for the idea. We decided to do up some "temp dreads" that she rocked for a few days before we washed them out to see what she thought about them. We watched "Horton Hears a Who" and, in true big sister fashion, Ell helped put a few in.

Gilly loved them... she did not love washing those temps out. Her father boycotted the idea of dreadlocks at the advice of his sister (and everyone else under the sun) who pressed that she was too young to make a decision like that. And so the hair brushing torture continued and an appointment was set to chop off all of Gills long brown hair into a bob.

That appointment was canceled! Because deep down Gill's Dad and I both knew it was not what we or she wanted and it wasnt the answer. So glad we listened to our hearts in the long run.

The months went on, the brushings went on amidst the sobs and crying and begging for dreadlocks....In December of 2011 something changed. Gilly's Dad called me up and told me he'd decided that yes, she can have dreads.

The idea was met with plenty of protest from plenty of people.Gill and I discussed that not everyone was going to like her dreads, but that that didn't matter so long as SHE liked her dreads. We talked about the fact that once they are in, they are in and that she would have to cut them out if she decides she no longer wants them. When we were sure she understood what would go into having them, and she still wanted them, we went for it!

There was NO way her Dad would allow her to go totally natural and grow some neglect dreads, so we put them in with a combo of back combing and twist and rip (bummer I really understood twist and rip after the fact, so only 10 of her dreads are done like this... I actually combed out the others and put these in after a week).

While her dad sometimes has trouble with the idea of how frizzy her dreads are, he's getting used to it and really is understanding that for them to be natural, we just have to let them do their thing. I'm so in love with this process... just like parenting, we'll learn as we go!