Cornrow Breakthrough!!!

I'm so happy. So so happy. I had a breakthrough in learning how to cornrow Georgia's hair!

Here's the deal. I did not learn how to cornrow hair when I was growing up. I barely learned how to braid hair at all. That sort of thing just wasn't on my radar. And the little bit of hair stuff I did learn how to do was all for white girl hair.

For me, at least, braiding white girl hair and braiding coarser, more textured hair is two totally different things requiring two totally different techniques. I was trying to braid Georgia's hair in big, sweeping motions like I had learned to french braid white girl hair. Consequently, Georgia's hair was turning into little french braids, but they didn't lay flat enough to her scalp and I could never seem to get the braids very tight. The rows of hair looked like french braids, but they didn't look like CORNROWS.

I watched some videos on the internet recently and realized that I wasn't holding my hands the right way to make good cornrows. The technique for braiding cornrows is different than it is for french braids. I wasn't holding my fingers in the right positions. I studied and studied a couple of select videos. But I've never been very good at watching someone do a physical action and then imitating it with my own body. Like, I really suck at it. I tried tai chi once and it nearly left me in tears, I'm so bad at trying to imitate movements. Tai chi is supposed to be the opposite of a bringing-you-to-tears kind of stressful situation. I lack a certain awareness of my body, I guess. So I scoured the internet for some sort of written instruction on how to hold your fingers to make cornrows. I could find lots of general directions, but nothing that was explicit enough. Nothing that broke the finger positions and the hand movements down far enough to answer my questions and end my confusion.

So I just started watching those instructional videos over and over again, pausing and rewinding, while I practiced making cornrows with the hair of one of Georgia's dolls.

Then finally I figured it out a little. I managed to make a nice, fat cornrow. I undid the braid and tried to do it over again. And I couldn't get it. GRRRR! But I was encouraged by my one success, and I spent the next day practicing on the doll until my fingers not only figured out how to make the braid, but could remember how to do it over and over again. Muscle memory.

So tonight I cornrowed Georgia's hair. Woo hoo!

On a scale of 1 to 10, my overall skill before the recent breakthrough was about a 2. I'd say I'm about a 5 now. My hair parts still look crappy, the cornrow still isn't quite tight enough, I still can't add the hair in perfectly evenly, and it's hard for me to keep the cornrow straight down the middle of the section of hair that I'm braiding. BUT I'm so so so pleased with my own progress. I feel like less of a loser-mom. Now I'm an at-least-you're-making-progress-mom.