New Dreads

My family went to the Good Vibrations Unschooling Conference in San Diego, CA last weekend. That is an entire blog entry by itself, and I'll have to do that one later. An amazing, life altering few days...really.

While we were in San Diego, my new friend Tara  (@OrganicSister) gave me dreadlocks!

Tara sectioned off my hair.

(picture from here)

She back-combed and palm rolled each section.

(picture from here)

It *really*, *REALLY* hurt at times.

About two hours in...

(picture from here)

We had a regular audience that would stop by and see how far along we were.

Dreading and breastfeeding L(14m), with two of my other kids nearby.

We are near the hotel pool.

That night, we attempted to count how many dreads there are...and we *think* 57.

It took us 7-8 hours that first day to get all of the dreads in.

From what I hear, that's pretty fast...

Two days later, we began to tighten any dreads that had come a little loose.

This is me, keeping the tightened and the untightened separated overnight.

After tightening them all up, here's me (on the right), with @OrganicSister (left), and @aenclade (center--another unschooling mama twitter friend). 

(picture from here)

When I left the conference on Sunday, this is what the new dreads looked like!

Here are the new dreads at about 6 days old...

WHY? Why did I get dreads? For me, it's not religious or meaningful...I just wanted a low-maintenance hairstyle. I hate getting my hair cut, styling, any of that stuff. I am the queen of get out of the shower and throw my hair into a bun (no brushing or drying first). I've thought about getting dreads for a few months now, and then I read Tara's blog post on her dreads. When I expressed an interest in getting them, Tara offered to do them for me at the conference. Yes, they did take a total of about 10 hours to put in...and they will require some special care for the next few months (or whatever)...but in the end, I believe that they will be low-maintenance. And, I plan on keeping them forever...