Little S and her curls

When people first meet Little S, they say things like,

"Look at those long eyelashes!"

"She's so teeny to be walking already."

"She's such a beautiful baby." (we hear this one A LOT--in fact, Q calls her "the show stopper" because every where we go, people stop to see her and sometimes a crowd will gather--seriously!)

And then my all-time favorite, (which was what I said the first time I saw her) is,

"Look at those curls!"

(A took this picture of her curls when she first came to live with us.)

Her curls are beautiful indeed, but it takes time and patience each day to take care of them. Regular detangling spray does not work on her African-American hair. I used a sample leave-in conditioner that my hair gal gave me (which worked well), but I don't want to pay a lot of money for a regular can. I've heard of a couple of other good conditioners that work well, especially for kids, but I'm waiting to try them as I've been using something I made myself (trying to save a little money, folks!). I googled "how to make your own leave-in conditioner, and more than a few popped on the screen. You basically mix four parts water with one part conditioner and shake it up. I actually added more conditioner to the spray bottle since Little S's hair is super curly and gets tangled very easily.

Here's what I've been doing, and so far it works:

Every morning, I spray Little S' hair with water (she's okay with this so far...)

Then, I spray the homemade leave-in conditioner in her hair (she's still okay, but I have to give her something to distract her with)

Finally, I take a wide-tooth comb to comb out her hair. Sometimes there will be a few hard tangles to deal with, and for Little S, this is hard to bear. There are many mornings that I'm literally chasing her around the room as she squirms away. I'm trying to figure out the best way to make her stay put because when she does, the process goes fairly quickly.

Little S will have gorgeous curls for the rest of her life (which we're all a bit envious of, right?):) When she's older she will learn to care for the curls God gave her. Hopefully, this homemade leave-in conditioner will continue to work for her.

Any thoughts or tips on what I could be doing better for this little one? I'd love to hear about it!:)