“Will you braid my hair?”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there are just some nights where it’s a bit of a struggle to go down to my section. Sometimes I’m just not prepared for the attitudes or the “joking” or the hitting or the yelling…but mostly the attitudes…

On Tuesday I went down to my section to hang out with my girls and was immediately questioned with “Did you bring a game for us to play?” No "hello". No "how are you today?" Just – “what did you bring for us?” My response? “When do I ever bring something down here?” I help you with your homework, we read stories, I help you with your chores, we talk about life and different things, we play hand clapping games and say silly tongue twisters – why do I need to BRING you something to have fun?? But here’s the kicker – I was asked by SIX of my girls why I didn’t bring a game… It was SO strange. Regardless, I told the girls that they had never asked me before and that’s why I’d never brought one…and that if they were good I would bring a game the next time I came to the section. My response was met with a lot of eye-rolling, name calling, and “meh, whatever” attitudes from all of them. I felt REALLY welcome.

I decided that I was already in a bad mood and this wasn’t helping at all. I grabbed my stuff, said goodnight and headed for the door. On the way, I passed 3 of the girls sitting in the bathroom, braiding Maria’s hair. I went in to say goodnight to them and Margarita (whom I LOVE) asked "Will you braid my hair?" – something that NONE of the girls in the section trust me to do! (For some reason they think I can’t braid…don’t know where that comes from…) Regardless, she always knows how to put me in a good mood :). I put my things down and got to work. Tia Fruc told the girls it was time for bed so they all got themselves settled, but she let the 4 of us stay in the bathroom – talking and braiding…and then she came to join us. She started asking me questions about my relationship with Jon, how long we’d been dating, if I’d had boyfriends when I was the girls’ age, what our vision for our wedding was, etc. As we talked and braided each of the girls from my section started to trickle in to the bathroom and ask one of us to braid their hair. Soon we had roughly half the section sitting in the bathroom with us, talking about what style of dress I would wear and what my hair would look like and how excited they all were for me. The whole night turned out to be one of my favorites in my section in a looooooooooonnnggg time. And it was all thanks to 3 little girls and a whole lot of braids :).