My baby girl has been wearing braids since June of this year.  I had first gotten them for her because she was going on a trip with her father for a week and I couldn’t imagine Stan trying to comb Kristian’s hair during the week and just thinking of the pictures he was sure to take with her looking like a pik-a-ninny gave me chills.  Add to that my baby wanted to spend every waking moment in the pool and I was getting tired of the daily mini-bouts we were having when it came time to do hair for the day and my inability to let my child leave the house looking like a tackhead; left me with only one conclusion…get braids.  It takes 4 hours for the entire process.  EXACTLY 4 HOURS (that girl does an awesome job, I just love her).  It is a thing of beauty.  Kristian loves her braids, she gets to wear her hair down when she likes and I don’t have to wrestle with her and she looks as beautiful as ever.  What started out as a summer thing has turned into an every 3-month task…taking down hundreds of tiny braids, combing it out and shampooing it all before getting it re-braided again.  Well folks it’s now time to have the braids redone before Kristian returns to school next week and I had the task of taking down those braids.  I usually try to break it up over a couple of days (starting in the middle and working my way out so that I can still pull her hair up during the day and no one could be the wiser) but last night Stan and I were talking and I realized I had to get it all done that night because Kristian was going to be with her dad all day and I wouldn’t see her again before she had to get her hair done at 8 on Friday.  I was more than halfway complete, but still it was alot of braids to undo. 

I made mac & cheese for dinner.  Not your ordinary mac & cheese…I saw a recipe for chicken mac & cheese and decided that was for dinner.  To make it way more better, I decided to add chicken AND bacon to the mac and cheese.  Bacon…bacon…bacon…boy how we love bacon.  I briefly saw the recipe in the morning, but when I tried to find it later in the day I couldn’t find it anywhere.  So I had to come up with the recipe on the fly.  I took my regular recipe for mac & cheese that includes making a cheese sauce from 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of flour that are slightly cooked.  I then add about 1/2 cup of half & half and 1 cup of milk and allow the mixture to thicken.  I added 2 ounces of cubed velveeta, 2 ounces of cubed cream cheese (this was different from my regular recipe) 2 ouces of shredded pepper jack cheese and 2 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese.  I roasted some seasoned (salt, pepper, and olive oil only) boneless, skinless chicken breast in the oven at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.  I cooked the bacon (three strips) in the pan along with the chicken breast.  I used three ramikins and a small oval casserole dish to bake the mac & cheese.  My brother doesn’t eat pork so I made two ramikins with the chicken only for him, one with bacon only for Kristian and the casserole dish with with bacon and chicken for me.  I finished them off with a breadcrumb mixture made of 2 tbsp of melted butter, 1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs, 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese and 2 tsp of dried parsley.   I baked them for 25 minutes at 375 degrees.   They came out perfect.  I forgot to take a photo of the ones with bacon, but here is a look at the chicken only that I left made for my brother.  They are so creamy and delicious.  MMMmmm. 🙂   It was a quick and easy meal that would allow me to maximize my time and get Kristians hair taken down.

Note: I forgot to add the picture when I first posted this blog so, so here is the photo of dinner, with the bacon included.

I started taking down Kristians hair at 6:30 pm and finished at 11:45 pm.  I had planned to shampoo her hair in the shower last night, but it was just too late and she had already fallen asleep.  I decided to get her up in the morning to shower her and shampoo and comb out ALL that hair.   This morning, shampooing Kristian’s hair, I knew that it was going to be a trial combing it all out.  It seems as if it had not only gotten longer but a whole lot thicker.  She had always had hair that was considered “soft” which was one of the reasons why her hair never lasted longer than a day; but now she had a huge, thick afro that was just going to cause us both a lot of pain (the pain she would feel as I combed it out and the pain I would feel making my baby cry. :()  It took me 45 minutes of crying and heartache to get it all combed out; then I realized it was too thick to fit into it the hairbow and I had to braid some of it just to get it all in there.  When it was all over with, I was emotionally exhausted and Kristian had cried so much she had those baby hiccups.  I hated doing it, boy did I hate it.  She looks so pretty now…I talked to Stan a couple hours later and she was fine, so the anguish has been forgotten.  All that hair…all that hair.