This post is part 3 of 7 in the series Sugar and Spice & Everything Daughters.

When I had a daughter I imagined hair bows pouring out of every drawer and ribbons matching every outfit. I pictured blonde curls piled up on her head in a beautiful up-do….

Reality: 1) I don’t know how to do hair. 2) My daughters don’t like me touching their hair.

Hot mess is the perfect description of the hair situation in our house. I mean a serious hot mess of tangled curls, unruly hair, and two young ladies who Do. Not. Care.

I remember sitting at one of Tessa’s basketball games when she was four. There was a little girl on her team who had this adorable French braid that wrapped up around the back of her head in a bun. It was gorgeous! I felt hair incompetent (that’s a thing right?). Here I’d spent all morning just trying to get my daughter to sit still so that I could BRUSH her hair. Ponytail was as much as we could master.

As a baby, Tessa refused headbands and bows. Pictures were a special occasion. I may have bribed her to keep them on her head. I also didn’t start putting bows and headbands on her until she was older. Being a new mom, I was panicked about safety (not sure what I was worried about).

When Amelia was born I was determined to make her a “bow girl.” But – being the fierce, independent child she is – she would remove them herself. Just weeks old, she was determined to never wear a headband or bow no matter what.

Even now with an eight-year-old and three-year-old, getting anything past just brushing hair (even the act of brushing) makes everyone burst into tears. I try to be gentle. I let them know I am not trying to pull their hair intentionally – it’s just that their hair is a mass of curly tangles.

Amelia will do bows sometimes. Tessa will do headbands for her sports (mostly because her hair needs to be contained in order for her to see). But these girls of mine live in ponytails – mostly falling out, flying all over. And that’s okay to me. It fits who they are.

We aren’t perfectly polished and put together. Girls don’t always need to be. So even though it’s not all ribbons and bows in our house – we are okay with that. We survive with dirt smudges and wild hair, and I love every minute of it.

To all my mamas out there who can’t figure out the hair thing, what else do you do to keep wild hair contained?

Read more from our Sugar and Spice & Everything Daughters series!

• I Didn’t Want a Girl
• The Pressure of Raising Girls
• The Reluctant Mother to a Daughter
• She’s a Girl, but That Alone Does Not Define Her
• Dreams for My Daughter
• Like Mother, Like Daughter: My Mom’s Effect on How I’m Raising My Daughter