Plopped...

Once upon a time.....

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

~Longfellow (from Mother Goose)

The little girl with more than one little curl was me.  And now I am a granny who still has curl right in the middle of her forehead.  Down through the years I've had short hair, long hair, ironed hair, hat hair, frizzy hair and even tried smooth, straight hair.  I have wrestled and wrestled with the curls that God gave me until just a few years ago.  Now you can say I'm "embracing" my curls and it is sure a whole lot easier.  Yesterday Leslie from Wayside Sacraments was talking about natural beauty products for hair on her blog and then later I heard from Joyce at Plain Ol' Vanilla about plopping.  Today....I've been plopped.  Or maybe I should say, I plopped!

Whatever it is, I just tried a drying technique that works especially well for curly girls like me.  I'm an old dog, but I can still learn a new trick or two.  The word is that terry cloth towels should never be used on curly hair.  Yup. All those years and all that frizz!    With plopping (or plunking) it is recommended that you use a T-shirt, a microfiber towel, or a flour sack dish towel for wrapping up the hair to dry.  Basically, you take your wet head, fresh from the shower and plop it over a T-shirt, wrapping your hair up turban style and letting it dry from 10-30 minutes or more.  I think it made a huge difference in drying time and curl.  The curls seemed to be lighter and bouncier and more defined -- not as much frizz as when drying with the diffuser.  Usually when I air dry my hair it gets flat on top, but this method gave a little boost at the roots.  When I diffuse my hair it's pretty good, but any blow drying creates more frizz for me.  I'm so glad I tried this!

After I washed my hair today, I added a pump of clear aloe vera gel (my gel of choice) to my hair and  plopped it and wore the T-turban on my head for about 30 minutes before unwrapping it.  Then I let my hair air dry for bit.  (I had to go outside to help Hubs load up a bull so I got lots of nice fresh air blowing through my locks.)  I did use my curling iron on my bangs a little bit (remember the curl?), but I wouldn't have had to.  That's it.  Not much frizz, lots of defined curl, happy me.  For a tutorial or two on plopping or plunking, click here and here and here too!

Playing to learn...

A friend, Susan, pointed a group of us to this article from the NY Times called Playing to Learn.  As a mom who home schooled her five children from beginning through high school graduation, my heart cheers to read this article which encourages a playful  approach to the elementary years --promoting hours of reading aloud to children and  listening to children read aloud, having discussions with children and giving children time to write about things that matter to them, letting children count things (all kinds of things) and observe nature rather than making endless scientific word lists that are quickly lost after the test.  The ideas shared in the article are very similar to the way I taught my own children so I'm naturally ecstatic that Susan Engel, director of the teaching program at Williams College, would have supported my brand of teaching.   I would have taught this way no matter who thought it right or wrong, but it's nice to hear and goo to know that there are fresh ideas in educational circles today.  I would love to see the public schools adopt the ideas offered by this author.