Making Her Hair Dreams Come True

Last week I said that Little Girl had requested a mohawk sprayed with colorful hair paint for crazy hair day at our VBS.  If you have ever been in a vicinity of 50 feet from my little girl then you know that she is a girl who knows what she wants, is not afraid to ask for it (loudly) and keeps asking until she gets it.  As soon as she learned about the crazy hair day theme she made her hair desires very clear to me.

Well.  Let me tell you I had literally 25 minutes from the time Little Girl got out of the water after swim team practice to get her bathed, dressed for VBS, and also make her hair dreams come true.  And I really was not even quite sure HOW I was going to get Little Girl's hair into a mohawk!  Talk about tricky!

But, thankfully a great idea came to me to put her hair in 4 different little ponytails along the middle of her head and it ended up working perfectly to create the mohawk look.

Then I spray painted the mohawk with purple spray paint because why not?  Crazy Hair Day at VBS is the kids one day out of the year to have a wacky hair style, so go big or go home, right?!!

Several people at VBS told Little Girl how great her hair was and moms were asking me how I did it -- ha!

My other 2 VBS kids sporting their versions of crazy hair (notice the 3 different colors of hair paint - pink, purple and blue - where did these high-maintenance children come from?):

My oldest had water day at VBX that day and wore his swim suit and swim shirt.

It was  about half-way through the morning at VBS while I was helping forty 2nd graders with a craft that I realized I planned to run by Trader Joe's for a few key items (like Ethiopian coffee -- we CANNOT run out of coffee) on the way home from VBS and I'd have to take my 3 crazy hair kids plus my 1 kid in dressed in a swim suit into the store with me!  Talk about a spectacle!

But, I did not want to go home, get everyone cleaned up, and go back out again!  Also, I remembered that I have no pride remaining when it comes to being out and about with my kids and people staring or thinking weird things about me, so I took them into the store and we walked around as if there was nothing unusual!  A store employee told my little kids they had "cool hair"!

Thankfully that hair paint washed out on the first try!

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This week with VBS over, Camp Mom has been in full swing.  And remember from last summer I explained Camp Mom is not where I go to camp and get to sleep in and have manicures and pedicures and massages.  No, Camp Mom is where I attempt to entertain/occupy my 4 children during various weeks of their summer break instead of sending them to camp I have to pay for, to be enterained/occupied by someone else.

We've done science experiments, like this one where you sprinkle ice cubes with salt to get them to stick to a piece of yarn.

A perk about going to Camp Mom is that jammies are totally acceptable attire and even encouraged -- less wash to do!!

We've gone to a free play put on at our local outdoor theater, we ate lunch while watching a movie at a movie grill place, we've gone to the library and signed up for the summer reading program, we've done some handwriting practice and a bit of schoolwork to keep everyone fresh over the summer!

Then today at Camp Mom, my kids were able to assist and witness a surgery!  "Beary" had a large gash in his side that needed several stitches:

A needle and thread fixed him right up.  The 11 year old insisted on taking pictures!.

Beary is now resting comfortably in the 5 year old's bed.

I'm ready for some rest now.  Early swim team practices combined with being all on all day with my four kids plus one night my husband was out of town have left me a little worn out!

Happy Friday and Happy Father's Day to all the dads in your life!

How long does it take to fix her hair?

I get that question a lot about Little Girl's hair.  The answer depends on the style.

This one?

Took 3 Brady Bunch episodes (our whole family loves old Brady Bunch episodes we get from Netflix).

So about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

And that is just the braiding and beading, it doesn't include the washing and detangling that I did for about 30 minutes prior to the braiding.

If you'd told me 4 years ago there would come a day that I'd spend 2 hours fixing 1 child's hair, I'd have said, "No way!  That's crazy!"

But, this is our life now and it's not so crazy, it just is the way it is.

Is it worth it?  I mean it's just hair!

In your native culture a little girl's hairstyle may not be a very big deal, but in some cultures, including much of the black culture, hair is very important and how a little girl's hair is fixed represents how well she is cared for.  Fixing my daughter's hair in some of the more ethnically-traditional styles is one way to embrace her birth culture.  There are a lot of things in life that are going to be different for her growing up in a white family versus growing up in a black family, hair does not have to be one of those things.

And, it's practical!  The braids and twists keep my Little Girl's hair much healthier.  Her hair dries out very quickly when it is in a "free hair" style and it is much more prone to getting sand, grass, dirt, and debris in it that are hard to get out.  Also, while the initial investment of time is a lot, this style will easily last a week with very little maintenance, maybe longer.

My 8 year old white daughter with long, fine, straight hair gets it brushed and fixed a bit each day, sometimes twice a day, and her hair has to be washed nearly every day. So, while she does not get 2 hours put into her hair in one day, she gets 10-15 minutes each day.

And my 4 year old black daughter with her coarse, curly hair, gets 2 hours of maintenance once a week (and some styles do not take that long) and then she only requires about 1 minute each day to add some oil to her part lines!

Another reason it's worth it:  She likes it!  This style is only the 3rd time I've done beads and I only attempted them after Little Girl and I were reading a book and the girl in the book had braids with beads in the ends and my Little Girl said she wanted her hair to be like that so she could swing it and hear the beads click, click, click together.

And the best reason of all:  Little Girl often gets compliments on her hair and people ask her, "Who did your hair?"  And she proudly says, "Mommy!"  As someone who only got to start being her Mommy when she was 3 years old, hearing her get to boast about something her Mommy did for her makes every minute spent on her hair totally worth it to me!

Hair bands For My Daughter's Kinky Curly Hair

I posted a while back about our haircare routine for my Ethiopian daughter and I realized that I forgot to share about the hair bands I use.  When we first brought our daughter home, I tried out several different types of hair bands and had terrible problems with the bands breaking, typically a few minutes after I'd somehow managed to wrangle the hair into some sort of puffs or twist style.  It was really frustrating!

Finally in desperation I asked for advice from someone with much more experience than me and she told me that all the leave-in conditioner and oils that are typically used on kinky curly hair can saturate hairbands and cause them to break easily.  Thankfully she was able to recommend some rubber bands from Sally's Beauty Supply that do not break!  They come in black or assorted colors.  I've used them for well over a year now, and they work SO much better than all the others I tried at first!

Here's a picture, they are Proclaim brand:

I realize that to many people hair bands may seem like an extremely minor life detail, but I'm here to tell you as a white mama of a black little girl, having hair bands that do not break easily is HUGE, especially in those early days caring for a newly adopted child!  Ever heard the saying that sometimes it's the little things that finally put you over the edge?

Find more Works For Me Wednesday here.

Our Haircare Routine for My Ethiopian Daughter

I have really hesitated to write any sort of "how-to" related to my African daughter's hair because mostly I'm still far from an expert even 19 months into caring for her hair.  I've just barely learned enough to manage.  Also, there are far better resources than me on The Internet, and I am so thankful for them, one of my favorites being the awesome blog Chocolate Hair Vanilla Care.  She has wonderful tutorials on styles and in depth reviews of products.  For example, check out this entire post dedicated to sleep caps!

But, I do have friends in the adoption process or with kids newly home ask me what we do.  Recently, a friend who brought her daughter home around the same time we did our Little Girl asked me about managing the hair because her daughter was an infant when she came home and my friend has not had to do a whole lot to her hair yet, but now that the little girl is getting older she realizes she has to start doing more.  So, since I keep composing the same email to send out to friends with our basic hair routine, I thought I'd just post it here on the blog for easier reference.

Little Girl's fantastic curls that require an entirely different type of care than my super straight, oily hair:

Here's what I sent my friend a couple weeks ago when she asked for hair help:

Oh the hair!  It is such a learning process and I'm still learning!  But, here's what we do:

Wash with conditioner only (Aubrey Organics Honeysuckle Rose - I buy it at drugstore.com) once a week. I kinda scrub with the conditioner on then leave it on for about 10 minutes while she plays in the tub. Then I detangle her hair by combing through it with a wide-tooth comb (like this one). The detangling is pretty hard if she's had a free hair style (can take 20-25 minutes or so). If she's had braids or twists in then the detangling is pretty easy (more like 5 minutes). Wash with shampoo (Kinky Curly Brand) only about once a month and do that step before the conditioner. After detangling I rinse out the Aubrey Organics Conditioner and then pat dry her hair with an old t-shirt (towels make it more frizzy). Then I put on a leave in conditioner like Kinky Curly Knot Today Conditioner (you can buy this at Target or various places on the web) or if I'm going to do braids or twists I'll put on Shea Moisture brand Raw Shea Butter Restorative Conditioner.

She sleeps in a sleep cap and on a satin pillowcase (probably overkill but I need all the help I can get to keep the hair nice!). And for swimming I typically convince her to wear a silicone swim cap. Also in an attempt to keep the styles nice, all the dress-up princess crowns have disappeared from our dress-up bin (a sad truth, but not as sad as snagging a style that took me over an hour to do).

If I do a style with lots of little braids, it can last several days (we've gone as long as 2 weeks before). I can even wash the hair with the braids in. I just rub conditioner on the scalp and then squeeze some through the braids with my hands and rinse. On non-wash days, if we have free hair, it takes a lot of adding moisture (like more leave-in conditioner or some oil) both at night and in the morning. I use coconut oil, sometimes, but jojoba oil seems to work best for us. For non-wash days when she has braids or twists in, I typically just have to put a little jojoba oil on the part lines once a day.

The braids and twists take a while to put in (for making part lines the pin tail comb is your friend) but they are much easier to maintain day to day. With free hair her hair gets so tangled and dry and also if she gets any sand or grass in it, then it is so hard to get out! With braids, the sand and grass and debris doesn't stick in her hair.

Here's a braid style:

And this is "free hair", otherwise known as an afro.:

That's all for now.  This topic is huge and could go on forever, but maybe if I can get to it sometime I'll post a how-to on some of our favorite styles.

Happy hair stylin'!

70 Minutes

 

I want to say straight up that I consider it an honor and privilege to do my littlest girl's hair.

From this very white (think Casper the Friendly Ghost) mama with super straight hair, my 3 year old's hair is awesome!

I've learned a ton these last 8 months about caring for her hair, and I still have a lot to learn!

That hairstyle took 70 minutes.  

Clearing an entire morning to "do hair" would have at one time seemed crazy to me, but now, it's just life.  My crazy, blessed, sleep caps, shower caps, braids, twists, free-hair, co-washing, hair product-filled life!

Find more Wordful Wednesday here.

We got our kids hooked on Little House on the Prairie!

As I said last Friday, it's the busy season of end-of-school year events plus a perfect storm of kid activities, so it's been a non-stop week.

This evening my husband got home a little early.  The kids all swam today in various swim workouts or lessons, (even Little Girl who was not actually signed up for any swimming but took a dip anyway -- in full clothes, no less - oh, the crazy!), so all four kids were chlorine-coated and desperately needed showering or bathing.  The house was in shambles from a hurried schedule that allowed children time to change clothes but not time to put away the clothes they'd changed out of.  There were backpacks and lunch boxes and folders and wet swim towels everywhere and also the stuffing contents of a new ladybug toy the dog got yesterday and has already gutted all over the floor!  I had gone to a store this morning but not managed to get the stuff I bought put away yet.

We really should have all buckled down and gotten done what needed to get done, but instead my husband suggested we shower everyone in record speed, eat dinner, and then watch as a family the hour and a half pilot episode of Little House on the Prairie (the original 1974 version) that we got in the mail via NetFlix.  

We never have family movie night on a school night, but I was a pretty easy sell on that idea and told him the kids could NOT go to bed late so I was game as long as we could get the movie started in time.

We did and the house is still in shambles but it was such a fun hour and a half!  The kids really enjoyed the show (who wouldn't LOVE classic Little House??) and we had some great little conversations about what life was really like for early settlers/pioneers and just how hard everyone had to work, including the kids!!

And while it was not what we should have done, it was exactly what we needed!

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I am making myself feel better about the guilty pleasure of a 1.5 hour show by the fact that I spent about half the show styling Little Girl's hair.  I didn't get pictures, though, but here are a couple pictures of last week's style -- twists!!!

Wow, those little things are hard to do, but I was pretty happy with the results of my first attempt at them!

She's finally letting me try out some more elaborate styles and with us being outside more this time of year, I'm seeing the beauty of a more protective hairstyle than free hair because it's easier to keep the grass and sand out.  I really need to do a blog post just on the hair, because oh my at all the things to discuss there!

But for now, I'm just going to say Happy Friday, Friends!

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Find more Finer Things Friday and  Friday Fragments.