Yarn Braids, Goodbye!

We started with these braids in early December. Over the last week I've noticed that Kendi's roots were looking pretty raunchy, and some of the braids had pulled out a lot of the hair initially put in the section. Time for them to go.Kendi was NOT happy. We started by cutting the braids shorter.
These braids had really started to matte (sp?) into the yarn, so it took me 3 hours to get them out. NOT fun.This picture shows what was happening. A big chunk of hair detached and clumped together, with a small amount of hair actually left to hold the braid in.I never know how much hair is "normal" to lose. This is roughly what Kendi lost. A lot of it is the hair that would have naturally shed from her head but couldn't because of the yarn. But some of it is from the hair being pulled out (when I put it in pony tails or pulled it back in other ways). I put the kiddie scissors there for size perspective.

I had to really convince her to smile for this photo! It was almost midnight, she was tired, and she was still not happy to lose her braids!

In the end I don't think that we've lose much hair. It's a little thinner on the sides. It's weird seeing her today with her short hair again!

To be a child again...

The little ones had been playing outside for quite some time. It was TOO quiet, so I went out to see what trouble they had gotten themselves in to. Hmm...they were nowhere to be found. Then I heard some mumbles coming from somewhere. I followed the sounds of those little voices.Surprise! They were both in the doghouse WITH the dog, just playing away! They stayed in there for over an hour. Some people buy fancy playground equipment to put in their back yard. P-sha! I say, give 'em dirt, an old stroller, a horse trough, and a broken down 'ol dog house and tell them to go to town!

Yarn Braids--Reveal!

Yarn braids are now complete. 73 braids was our total this time. I left you last when we were here...Here is her proud smile when I had finished installing the braids but before I finished the ends.
Here is the final result. I decided to see if I liked bangs this time. I think it's sort of cute. What do you think? The cool thing is, if I get tired of them, I'll just cut them off and replace them with longer braids!Shot from the back. I never plan out the parting. I just grab what feels like the right amount of hair for each braid and go with it. When I saw this photo it surprised me that it looks like I actually planned out a grid or something!Just to add a bit more pizazz I added these cute little diddies I found at the dollar store. Not enough to do all 73 braids so just the 5 bang braids will have to do!

A few people asked for a tutorial on these. There's lots of info online if you don't want to wait for me, but I did have Taevy take pics of each step. [She's so good with the camera. The pics are pretty clear!] When I get a bit of time I plan to post the step by step on the blog. =-)

Love,

Anita

Braid Time

It's been over a year since I last put yarn braids in Kendi's hair. [For those of you who haven't heard of them, they are basically like putting extensions in her hair, except that you use plain 'ol acrylic yarn, which actually ends up looking more like real African hair than the regular extensions. Plus, they are super inexpensive!]

Kendi has asked for "long hair" many times this year. Honestly, I don't find that the yarn braids do any favors for her normal hair growth, so I put it off. But I promised for Christmas that I would give her long hair. We had a talk yesterday about hair time and if she was really willing to sit like a good girl. YES, she said, she would be patient. YES, she said, she would look down when I told her to. YES, she said, she would sit still on mommy's lap.

We started her hair last night and put in 3 hours. I got about 35 braids done in that time. [I am not very fast at this and her hair is thin and short.] She kept her end of the bargain and was a good girl the whole time!

When we finished for the night she RAN into the bathroom and said, "Mom, this is just TOO great!" Then she brought me a ponytail holder to put in a ponytail (something she can't normally do with her short hair)!

Today Kendi was expected next door for a Christmas lunch our neighbor has for the kids. What to do with a 1/3 braided head? Bandana is our best friend! [Note, I haven't braided to the end or decided what length to go with. Nobody notices that with it tied behind her back. ]

Last night I asked Kendi to talk about her new long hair on video. Silly girl! Uh-oh. Better go. She's crying upstairs because somehow "my hair is all messed up!"

Two Years of Honeymoon!

Here in the Gillispie house we are celebrating 2 years of living and loving Miss Kendi Mae! This is so cliche to say, but it's true that it seems like just yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at once. I was looking back at my September 2009 blog posts tonight and this one titled "No Tears" was meaningful to me. It's two years later and much of me still feels as if we are still living a honeymoon. This child completed our family. The contentment in my heart that her homecoming brought, will never be matched.The picture above was the first one I took of Eric and the kids after everybody left our homecoming party. Look how tiny (and bald) she was! I remember this little dress. It was 4t. I knew it would be big, but it was HUGE on her tiny 20 pound frame. I forgot how poochy her belly was then, but I hadn't forgotten that sullen look that she wore for about the first 48 hours we had her. That is classic Kendi to this day!The above photo is probably one of my favorite photos ever of my four kids. Aren't unposed photos the best? It says a lot--taken a few days after she came home. She is looking so confused. Bright is in his own little world, flipping around. Taevy is the princess, as always. Samren is in the back (as he often is) with his quiet thoughts. The sidewalk could be a symbol of the long lives they all have before them, and the many things they have all survived to get them to this point! I really should print and frame this photo.This photo made me smile. Now, Bright is wearing the shirt that Samren is wearing in this photo. Kendi still has this dress, but it now comes to her upper thigh.
I don't have a photo from this month or last of all four children together, but I did have this photo of Kendi and Bright. Back in September 2009 I imagined that they would be best friends. I thank the Lord that is exactly what has happened. Despite Bright's special needs, these two depend on each other for so much in life. Sometimes he is the big brother. Other times she plays the role of big sister. They teach each other how to navigate the world. I asked myself tonight if Kendi had changed much in the past two years. Even her pictures don't seem THAT different. She has put on a whopping (read sarcasm) 8 pounds in the last two years, and about 14 inches! She has grown about 1-2 inches of hair. She is still "the diva." She still cries (and stops crying) at the drop of a hat. She doesn't much care to play the role of "baby" in the house, although she will certainly use that to her advantage if it suits her! She is cunning and clever and witty and full of energy. She will run into a stranger's arms as quickly now as she did 2 years ago. We now know this is just her super loving (and possessive!) personality. She is a tiny package of personality! Concentrated. Yes, that's it. Whatever is usual in a child, just concentrate it and that is Kendi. She is extreme in her love, her anger, her successes, and her failures. When I first asked my friend Muna about 2.5 years ago what Kendi's (aka Mabel's) personality was like she sighed and said, "Oh, this Mabel!" And that's it! Ha! I can't tell you how many times a week I say, "Oh, this child!" She is something else, and I am so thankful that she is ours. The Lord has truly blessed us.

My dearest Kendi...Kendi Mae...Mabel...Mae-Mae...Lil' Bit... words will never suffice to express how thankful I am that you are in our family. September 2009, when I thank back on it, was one of the happiest months of my entire life. It is because truly, you completed us. You brought us to the end and the beginning, all at once.

Love,
Anita

Kendi Mae--4 Years old!

My baby girl is 4 years old today!

In true Kendi spirit, she wore her dress up clothes all day. What a fun age, where you can give in to all of your fancies, and believe that one day you may, indeed, be a princess.
Tonight she was practicing telling us how old she is. "I is 4 ears old!"

We celebrated Kendi's birthday with Eric's family last weekend. We gave her 40 balloons. $3 well spent, let me tell you! Today we really had no plans, so we took all the kids to see the new "Wimpy Kid" movie at the dollar movie(very family friendly) and then to McD's for dinner and play time. When I get home from Ghana we'll celebrate with my side of the family. Lucky kid! 3 birthdays! And faithfully, many more.

Where?

Where, oh where, had my little girl gone?

There she is!

Hair Evolution: Stacked Up Pigtails

Today we were getting ready for homeschool choir and I asked Kendi how she wanted her hair done. "Kai Lan hair Mommy! Kai Lan hair!" In Kendi's world this means pony tails. =-) Some day she will have enough hair to do a single or double puff, but we aren't there yet. It is HUGE progress that she only needs 8 puffs! Yea! Only 8 puffs!

For her "bangs" I flat twisted the front section and added dangly barrettes.

After I was done, Kendi was very excited to see her ponytails. When she looked into the mirror she promptly started letting go of crocodile tears. "This is NOT Kai Lan hair! Mommy, it's not long enough. I want LONG ponytails!" Poor baby. She gets so tired of being the short-haired girl. She doesn't see how far she's come; she only sees how far she has yet to go (in her mind)!

I, on the other hand, am so encouraged by the recent hair growth! She's definitely had a spurt since I wondered openly on the blog if we should get her a wig (LOL)! Her hair is long enough now that an experienced hand could definitely get some thin cornrows out of the length. And it's got to be 10 times thicker (literally) than it was 1.5 years ago when she came home. Grow hair, grow!

She's pretty.

She's goofy.

She's pretty goofy!

Seriously, how could I be down for more than a few minutes when Kendi is constantly making me laugh so hard! [And Bright is kissing my cheeks; and Samren is telling me what a good mommy I am; and Taevy is amazing me with whatever her latest artistic creation is; and Eric is there to catch me at the end of the day.] =-)

Watch out!

Be prepared for the scariest look EVER!

I am in Love.

Today I was erasing old emails off of my gmail account. I came across the one below, written on January 20, 2009, with pics attached.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anita Gillispie
Date: Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 3:53 AM
Subject: I am in love.
To: Eric, Mom

I'm in love with Mabel. M.A.B.E.L. Mothers Always Bring Extra Love.

**********************************************

That's all I wrote. Short and sweet! That was the first time my mom and Eric would have heard about Kendi. "Hey Eric. I met your fourth child today. See her pic? Ready to go?" Ha! I wonder what he felt when he opened that email? I knew I had some sort of connection with Kendi Mabel even before I traveled to Ghana that January, but even I didn't know she was my daughter. Once I met her, I knew. *I* knew. My mom and husband didn't know. =-) There was a lot of praying going on for the next several weeks after I got home. It's not every guy that would step out to adopt a potentially sick child when they are doing dialysis and waiting on a kidney transplant. I am so, so thankful that my husband jumped off the cliff with me and said "yes" to Mabel. Mothers Always Bring Extra Love. So do daddies. =-)

Sister Love

[Photo credit to Samren, age 9]

Despite 7 years age difference these two find lots of ways to play together. Kendi *LOVES* her big sister, and Taevy *LOVES* her baby sister. The other day they had fun setting up a back drop and making up different poses for Samren to capture. I think all of these pics are cute, but I REALLY like the top picture!

Hair Evolution: First Faux Hawk!

The other night when Kendi was super sick I was playing with her hair. I did two french twists on one side of her hair. We had just seen Willow Smith on TV and she had this cute little do where she had two braids on the side and a cute faux hawk thing with the rest of her hair. The next day I decided to see what could be accomplished with Kendi's hair.

I think the result is so cute! If you knew her personality you could see how this style suits it perfectly. It's just so sassy and spunky! We got lots of compliments today at Homeschool Choir and the library. =-) The best part is that the twists and puffs are actually staying in! Her hair is long enough to hold a style! Woot!

Wig for kids?

Is there anybody out there that has ever considered getting a wig for your hair-challenged child? I *NEVER* thought that this type of thing would even cross my mind, but the older Kendi gets without much hair growth, the more I think about alternatives.

She just loved the yarn braids we had in for a few months over the holiday season. But the yarn braids did not love her. Her hair continues to get thicker month by month, but we see very little growth. She's 3.5 years and has been home for 1.5 years. This isn't just a matter of her "catching up" anymore. Her doctors agree that this might be a real long-term issue for her.

Certainly hair is not considered a "big deal." That is, unless you don't have it. How much do we girls love to have hair options? How many of us love the option to go curly or straight, long or short? I do. My other daughter does. Kendi does too--but she doesn't have options. Yes, she totally rocks her little mini-fro, palm coils, and tiny twists. I figure her heard can handle yarn braids one or twice a year, tops. The child absolutely adores her play wigs. She wants to have pony tails and braids like most other little girls. And I can't give them to her.

Do they even make good natural looking African hair wigs? Would it be completely silly to consider this as an option for Kendi--for those days when she wishes she had longer hair? Just something I've been thinking about lately. I don't know of any other internationally adopted children who have had the issue of no/slow hair growth. =-(

Anita

P.S. To make it clear, *I* do not have a problem with my daughter's gorgeous short hair. But I can see her lack of hair is starting to make her feel self-conscious.

"Hopsital" Day.

Today was a "hopsital" day (as 3 year old Taevy would have said). Kendi's quarterly HIV appointment was today. Everything appears to still be great with the HIV. We'll know for sure when the labs come back.

It does appear that we're headed down an undesirable road with nutrition. Haven't posted about it much because after Samren's issues (failure to thrive, rare GI disease, g-tube, formula-based diet, destroyed immune system, etc.), it would take a LOT for me to get to the point of really worrying about Kendi's lack of appetite. I keep notes. We do the best we can. But she's not slowly starving to death like her brother was. Still, she's not eating enough to grow.

The day she came home from Ghana she weighed 21 pounds. Now, she hovers somewhere around 22-25 pounds (depending on the scale and the day). But she's 6 inches taller! If she was eating well I wouldn't really be concerned at all. But for the last month she has decided (again) that food is not her friend. Ugh.

She's not a picky eater. She likes a variety of foods. She will eat any texture. But she simply refuses to eat. Her one staple right now is whole milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast. I can get that down her pretty much every morning. The rest of the day she may eat a few olives off of my salad, or a few bites of bread here and there. She's generally eating 500 or less calories a day. NOT. ENOUGH.

So--lucky us--we get to go see the nutritionist, who will probably send us on to a speech therapist. We will get to the speech therapist because they won't believe me when I tell them she does not have an oral aversion to food. I think it's something medical (like the formerly diagnosed delayed gastric emptying). They will have to see for themselves that it's not psychological and we will waste a lot of time and money proving it to them. [Or, I'll eat crow if I turn out to be wrong!]

Our experience with children who don't eat is that it's always first assumed to be some sort of oral aversion or sensory issue with the child. I really do not wish to go down this road with another child. I don't have the patience for it--for all of the doctors acting like I'm an uninformed mom. [No offense to my doctor friends!] It's weird to me that we're not going to see a GI rather than a nutritionist/speech therapist.

Other than the food, Kendi appears to be doing fantastic.

Tomorrow is Taevy's big day at the hospital--the cardiac appointment we've been waiting for. Please pray with me that everything is absolutely NORMAL!

Hair Evolution: Back to Reality

Well, our 2nd experiment with yarn braids/Jenie Locs has come to an end. Back to life. Back to reality! These braids were a tremendous success compared to our last experiment with them 6 months prior. The first time they only stayed in a few days. This time they stayed in 8 weeks and 2 days--and we could have gone longer!

I have seen a ton of pictures of kids during the process of braiding, and tons of pics of the final product, but not many of what the hair is like upon taking the braids out.

Honestly, I was very fearful that we were going to end up with a bald Kendi. One braid fell out a few weeks ago and there was barely any hair left to replace the braid with. The kids said Bright pulled that braid, so it's possible he yanked her hair out. Still...

I was somewhat encouraged once I took all of the braids out. Easy process. Less than an hour. I cut the yarn to the point where I thought the hair was mixed in. Then I unbraided just the stub that was left.

Spiky!
Kendi wanted to leave her hair this way!

Next step was to detangle the mess, and give it a good "bath" in moisture! As I wetted her hair and started working oils in my hands were COVERED in her hair. It was pretty unsettling to see! I had heard that there would be a lot of this because the hair isn't able to shed what it would naturally lose when it's in the yarn braids. Still, I'm not sure if this amount is normal or if some of Kendi's hair was pulled out from the weight of the braids. [Her hair is way more fragile than most other kids' hair.]

I forgot to take a picture of the mound of hair that fell out. It was probably 3 inches round by 2 inches tall. A LOT of hair considering how little she has to being with!

Here she is after detangling, but before final styling.
At this point I relaxed because I could see that, at the least, we didn't appear to have less over all coverage than before the braids.

Here she is after I added Bee Mine Curly Butter to define her curls a bit more. Yea!
Do you notice anything missing in this picture? The bald spot is gone! That bald spot that has been with her her whole life, and a constant bother to us for the past 16 months!
All in all, the experiment was a success, and I feel it's a good styling choice for Kendi in the future. The amount of hair that came out was hard to see, but I think most of it was the hair that would have normally shed out over the course of 2 months. I don't think her hair grew much (if any) during the 2 months BUT it does seem that she has more hair per square inch of scalp. I will take thicker hair any day!

It's back to headbands, scarves, bows and cute hats for us. All of the kids say that now Kendi "looks Ghanaian again!" We were all sure to make a fuss over how beautiful she is with her natural curls and I think she went to bed feeling good about things even though she would probably choose to always have "long Dora hair" if I let her. =-)