Ballerina Up-do

Well, it's a style that I have seen on a ton of little girls, but it's usually done with cornrows: The Ballerina Up-do.

Since I'm not quite confident enough in my cornrows to do a whole head of them (and since I have just mastered "flat rope twists upside down"!) we substituted flat rope twists.

It was quick and pretty easy, too - after bath and detangling (I included a photo of mid-way through the routine, which I don't normally show!), we did our coconut oil and parting routine, then went right into the style since we were making such good time.  From start (pre-bath) to finish (totally done) it was less than 3 hours.

Usually the top is left in a free puff (from what I have seen on other kids) but I'm really trying for totally protective styles this winter - no loose ends anywhere.  So we left the twists in and created a bun.  It's a funny combination of ballerina and sumo wrestler.

The downside:  It's fuzzy already.  The twists are so big that all the little baby hair still growing in just popped up almost instantly.  We'll see if it lasts a whole week before the OCD mom in me has to retwist a few sections.  I'm thinking that the next time I do this one, I will do smaller twists (maybe 16 instead of 8?) to keep those baby hairs happy longer.

For this week, it will work.

And you'll have to excuse the fuzzy camera phone photos.  I can't bust out the big boy EVERY time.