Ayva and her kindergarten classmates performed in a play today, and at the end the teachers shared an adorable slide show with pictures from the entire school year. It was so cute to see photos from the children’s timid first day and watch how their personalities started to come out as their confidence grew. The thing that stood out to me about my child was how her hair was different in every single picture!

Ayva’s hair is beautiful. It’s thick and long and is a gorgeous color. I tell her all of the time how much I love it. She really likes having different styles, too. She doesn’t necessarily like getting her hair done, but once it’s done, homegirl can’t stop looking at herself in the mirror!

As she gets older, her hair is getting longer and thicker, and it’s really more challenging for me to manage. My mother-in-law offered to get her hair done by her stylist every month or so to help out, and Ayva goes for her first appointment next week. She won’t be getting her hair flat-ironed or have any chemicals added to it. Instead she’ll get it washed, blow-dried and braided up. Ayva is really tender-headed right now, so this might help make her hair a little easier to manage so it doesn’t hurt so much when I maintain it.

From curls to braids to cornrows and ponytails, I think Ayva has worn every single Black girl style this school year. I thought it would be fun to go through my pictures from August and share some of those different styles with y’all.