I’ve been blessed with several black female friends who, when they found out I was adopting a black girl, issued me  a challenge: “You have to take care of her hair.”

Of course, I thought. Wouldn’t all mothers take care of their little girl’s hair?

Clearly I was naive as to the depth and complexity of the hairable world of hair of little black girls.

Long before I met Addie, I was introduced to the blog-bible of Caucasian mothers who have adopted black girls, “Chocolate Hair, Vanilla Care.” I began to study at the feet of the author, who  taught lessons of cowashing, shingling, plaiting, and carrier oils. It would take months to read and understand her years of experience and wisdom. I’m not quite there yet.

Out of all the hairstyles I studied, I decided that the one I liked best was just a natural Afro.  I so hoped that Addie’s hair would be ringlets that would be naturally suited for a cute curly Afro!

When I first met Addie, her head had just been shaved days before. Apparently, lice was common in the orphanage, so the children’s hair was regularly shaved. I would have much rather dealt with lice than a year of, “Why is your little boy wearing all pink?”  I was so sad for Addie’s shaved head, but as her hair grew, I realized that it was growing into perfect tiny spiral curls. I was elated that my little girl would have beautiful perfectly ringlet-ed natural hair.

Fast forward 10 months.

My bathroom closet looks like a drug store clearance rack — a hodgepodge of products — conditioners, detanglers, moisturizers, curl activators, frizz tamers and on and on. We’ve experimented with a dozen different products in different combinations, and all with the same results: Addie’s hair looks adorable when she walks out the door, and like a rat’s nest when she walks back in.

I realized that I needed to call in backup.

So I met recently with two of my black female friends to discuss the trials of the hairable world of little black girls.

They assured me I would do fine. Yeah right.

I explained that after trying to do “natural hair,” I am waving a flag of defeat and trying to do something different with Addie’s hair. “But my problem is that I can’t find anyone who does black little girls’ hair. I’ve Googled numerous terms and can’t come up with anyone.”

Both of my friends laughed. “Oh, you don’t Google these folks. At least no one good. You have to have to find them by word-of-mouth.”

So I asked them for a reference. One decided to give me the name of someone she had recently used and that person’s cell phone number.  “Candice. 555-1212.*”

“There’s only a first name here,” I remarked. “Can I have her last name?”

“Oh, there are no last names in black women’s hair. But tell her that Shari Jarvis* with the Senegal twists gave you the number and tell her your story.”

“Gotcha,” I replied. “Where is her salon located?”

“No, no, no,” she chided. “You ask her to do it ‘on the side,’ and she’ll come to your house to do Addie’s hair. It’s actually even cheaper that way.”

She was speaking my language. I proceeded with my line of questioning. “So if I like a black woman’s hair, can I ask her what products she uses in her hair?”

“Nope, that’s a secret.”

“So, I can’t ask who does someone’s hair, or what products they use, but recommendations are all word-of-mouth?”

“Exactly.”

“What if I were to do her hair myself? I’ve seen this great website that shows me how to do Bantu knots, cornrows, and extensions.”

They assured me that extensions were beyond my scope, but I could probably attempt something more simple. By this time, I was starting to get nervous about having anything to do with Addie’s hair. They reminded me that she had to sleep in a satin sleep cap with a satin pillowcase. Be careful about her rubbing her head against the car seat, and make sure she doesn’t play with her hair.

They also reminded me that they themselves were thankful that they had boys and never had to deal with the hairable experiences of dealing with the complexity of little girl hair. Very reassuring.

So Sunday night, I attempted to put Bantu knots into Addie’s hair, but I soon realized that her hair wasn’t long enough, so I quickly switched to comb coils. The rest of the night wasn’t so quick. THREE  HOURS LATER, I finished my first hairstyle on Addie, with no small amount of whining. Addie didn’t enjoy it much either. (Ain’t nobody got time for ‘dat!)

How long will it last? I’m told that many styles will last for 2-3 weeks, which is 2-3 days in Addie time.

When I picked up Addie from day camp today, the black woman sitting at the entrance table complimented me on Addie’s hair.

“I really had no idea what I was doing, so it means a lot to me that you say that,” I replied.

“Are you kidding me? I have no idea how to do that!” she replied.

“Oh, it wasn’t too hard. Maybe I’ll be able to put you in touch with some people . . . once I know you a little better.”

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* Identifying information has been changed to protect the innocent.

Our kids began taking their medicine for their imaginary disease today. We knew it would be a battle injecting yucky metallic medicine in their mouths, when they have no understanding of what is going on or why they are taking it, especially since they are not sick. Ahem.

Ken and I thought long and hard about how to explain it. No, they don’t speak English.

We could just force them to take it and swallow. Not so good for trust-building.

We could try to mix it in with food and try to disguise it. No, what if they don’t eat the food? It’s not like we can get more medicine.

So we did what we feel all good parents would do in this situation: bribe them with candy.

Now, lest you think we are totally irresponsible parents, we actually have not given them ANY candy since we have been home. In some ways, their diet has been similar to infants — trying basic and familiar things first, and adding a few new foods per week. Of course we wanted to start with healthy foods, so we just haven’t gotten around to introducing candy. They don’t seem to really like sweets as much as they do vegetables, fruits, and meats anyway.

Ken and I agreed that this was an important enough occasion to break the candy fast.

I carefully drew up the medicine into the oral syringe, grabbed a candy fruit slice (because REAL fruit just won’t do in cases like this), and held both up to Palmer.

“Palmer, this is medicine. If you let me give it to you and swallow it, I will give you a piece of candy.”

His eyes brightened. He nodded. The deal was sealed with a smile.

Squirt. Swallow. Candy.

He ran out of the kitchen giggling, arms waving in the air.

Addie Rose started shouting from the breakfast table in Lingala, “Me! Me! Me!”

So I made her the same deal, and she accepted.

Squirt. Strange face. Swallow. Candy!

She giggled with delight.

Maybe this isn’t going to be so hard after all. This bribery thing really works.

After church today, we walked in the front door of the house with the smell of a crock-pot lunch wafting in the air. Our kids first words?

“Medicine! Candy! Medicine! Candy!”

We took our kids a couple of weeks ago to the Vanderbilt International Adoption Clinic, where we spent 5 hours having all manner of poking, proding, x-rays, and the ever beloved stool sample. Actually, only one child made a “donation” while we were there, so we were sent home with SEVEN containers to collect stool samples from our children. Four from one child, and three from Addie Rose, the “donor.”

One must think that of course this is because they were having abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, irregular stools, etc. No. Our children were completely asymptomatic. But JUST IN CASE they just weren’t telling us that they were having pain, the doctor thought it would be a wise idea to spend hundreds of dollars and multiple gag reflexes collecting and submitting stool samples.

I disagreed. I’m actually in health care myself, which makes me terribly noncompliant by my very nature. The kids were starting school, we had lots of appointments, vaccinations, school testing, and were carting the children to and from work and we were not about to carry around the “hats,” gloves, tongue depressors, and little bottles to submit stool samples from asymptomatic children.

So, two weeks after the “donor” submitted her sample in the doctor’s office, the doctor called me back with the results of the culture, ova and parasites, and giardia antigen. Basically, everything was normal. BUT there was something called blastocystis hominis in her stool, and SOMETIMES this causes abdominal pain. In most people, it is completely normal to have this in their stool, and in fact there are no treatment guidelines because even if people have it, as it tends to resolve on its own. But just in case she thought it might be significant for Addie Rose and Palmer because our children had done so much complaining about abdominal pain.

Oh wait, they hadn’t.

So the doctor wanted to treat both kids for it, with a medicine that basically treats any possible parasite that the stool sample wouldn’t catch, and wouldn’t require us to submit more stool samples.

No stool samples? No chasing our kids to the bathroom every time they have to do a doodle? But we have to treat an imaginary disease. Hmmmmmm. DEAL!

The only problem with the medicine is that it has to be compounded — it doesn’t come in premade form, so you have to get it from a special pharmacy that is willing to mix up the medicine from scratch. Fortunately, our local Walgreens is a compounding pharmacy, so our doctor said she would call in the prescription for both kids on Monday morning.

So, I waited 24 hours, knowing that it would take a little while longer to mix up, and went to the local Walgreens on Tuesday.

They said they had received the prescription for our son the day before, but not our daughter. Actually, her name and date of birth were in the system, but not a prescription.

“Why would you have her name and date of birth if you never got a prescription for her?” I asked.

“Well, I’m sure she’s been a patient here before,” they countered.

“She’s four and just arrived in America. And I’m her mother. She’s never been a patient here. You MUST have the prescription around here somewhere.”

There wasn’t a good answer.

The truth was, even for our son, the delivery truck had failed to offload the medication, so it wouldn’t be ready for our son until later that day. “What about our daughter?” I asked. Well, they didn’t have a prescription for her, so they offered to call the doctor and clarify that the prescription was for both children. After all, the only one that had been diagnosed with an imaginary disease that we were now treating so that I wouldn’t have to submit stool samples, was our daughter. He’s just being treated because he is related to her. Because this is how things work in the world of medicine.

Knowing that compounding a medication again takes time, I went back 48 hours later to pick up the medication for both children.

“Yes, the medicine for your son is ready,” said the pharmacy tech.

“What about my daughter, the one who actually had the (imaginary) disease?”

“No, I’m sorry, we don’t have a prescription on file for her.”

“You mean the prescription you were going to call about two days ago so that by the time I came back both would be ready?”

Blank stare.

The pharmacist came up from behind his pharmadesk and said that he would call immediately and confirm the prescription. Sure enough, he did, and the doctor confirmed that both children had the same prescription for the same imaginary disease. He said it would be ready in an hour.

Not wanting to wait around for an hour, I said that I would come back the following day, because, after all, imaginary diseases are not urgent.

On my way home, I got a call from Walgreens. “Um, remember how we said that we would have the prescription ready later today? Well, it turns out, we used up all of the medicine for your son. So you’re going to have to drive to another Walgreens in another town to pick up hers. But we can even tell you what town to drive to!”

“Oh, it’s no rush, I can pick it up tomorrow,” I insisted.

“Well, we’re afraid that we won’t be able to get the medicine in until next week.”

“You mean, you don’t have a courier service between different Walgreens stores if one runs out of a particular medicine, but another store has it?”

“Yes, in fact, we do.”

“Well, how about we go with that option, and you use your courier service, rather than me driving out-of-town.”

“I guess we can do it, but it won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

“Again, I’m in no hurry to treat an imaginary disease, but what I won’t do is treat one child one week and treat another child another week, nor will I drive out-of-town to buy a medicine from you.”

“Okay, we’ll have it ready tomorrow, here.”

Friday just before noon, I got a phone call from Walgreens telling me that my prescription was ready. Finally! I made my third trip to the same Walgreens.

“We have your prescription ready for your son!” they said cheerfully.

“What about my daughter?”

“We don’t have a prescription for your daughter.”

“This is my third time here. For the same medicine. Could you by any chance check?”

The tech consulted with the pharmacy manager and then returned. “Your daughter’s medicine will be on the courier service that will arrive this afternoon. Would you like to go ahead and buy your son’s medication?”

“Not a chance,” I replied. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Oh, it won’t take that long,” she persisted.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, trying not to lay the sarcasm on too thick as I walked away.

Finally tonight, Saturday night, we went to Walgreens and both prescriptions were ready, a mere 5 days after they were called in. Of course, our insurance didn’t cover them because they don’t cover “alternative drugs” like, ahem, antibiotics, but after 5 days and 4 trips to Walgreens, I was just happy to never have to go back! That was a whole lot of poo over an imaginary disease!