March 4, part 2: Goodbye Mrs. Duggar, Hello PTO.

Well this is quite a change!  Still getting used to the shorter (and, today, straighter) hair, but I like it and have almost officially committed to keeping up with this whole "getting your hair cut on a regular basis" business.  We'll see if it sticks.

March 4: Morning

Hen having cereal, before hair has been brushed AND before the Elmo related temper tantrum.

What I would eat and drink for every meal had I not met my husband (he has serious kitchen skills).

Today: 

1. Haircut.  Finally.  I'm re-entering my Michelle Duggar phase, time to lose the locks.
2. Sisters visit. Hooray! Can't wait to see the girls.  They will be surprised and hopefully pleased by the sleek new do and will probably make me promise not to wait a year before my next visit to the salon. 
3. Justin & Bree's rehearsal dinner at Rillo's...which means WEDDING tomorrow!  Get ready friendles.  It's "martini meets dance floor"time.

March 3: Three Months Old

coo!

March 2: A few precious moments in the great outdoors

little flower

 

little kitten

Today Alice and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent some time outside.  We figured we'd soak up the rays before the mercury dips back down into the 20s and 30s tomorrow.  These nice days throw us off so much--one moment we're shedding our heavy winter coats and gleefully running around at Fort LeTort, the next, we're psuedo-swearing under our breath (psuedo-swear: "Oh chips and pretzels!") while scraping ice off of windshields.  I don't really mind the cold, I just wish it would make up its mind and either stay awhile, or get the helmet outta dodge and let spring waltz in. 

March 1: Someday

Looking for a good cry?  Pick up this children's book and prepare to weep...openly...like a baby...in front of a large crowd of people.

Alice received this book as a gift from our dear friends, the Haupts.  It looks simple enough, harmless really, a young mother holding her cherub-faced baby up high for all the world to see.  Doting mother, chubby baby, nonthreatening, right?  Wrong!!  I cried my face of when I read this book.  Seriously, I thought my eyes might flow right out of their sockets.  I cried so unexpectedly, so honestly that my own father teared up.  "Someday" is beautiful and ruthless, all at the same time.  And, it is absolutely, hands down, my favorite childrens book. Ever.

I won't go through this page by page, although when I spotted it at our local Target, I did try to hold my friend Laura up so that I could read every heart-wrenching word to her (also a mother of a sweet little one-year-old girl).  She saw the inevitability of public tears and quickly walked away from me, towards more harmless selections...Dora, Elmo and the sort.   The first few pages share the story of a mother, giving birth to a baby, cherishing that baby, protecting that baby...and then, things get dark.  That baby grows up.  This is where the knot builds in my throat:

and now you are my CHILD?!?!  WHAT?!? Nooo!!!!!  No one ever said anything about this part.  Big kid helmet?  No training wheels?  Basket of books, indicating that this child is of reading age?!  READING age?!!  Now, if I had read this when I had Henry, I'd probably be touched, but not brought to tears.  It's having a baby who is turning into a child (or "a children" as he says) that makes this such a bittersweet read.  It says everything that I've been thinking ever since I had kids.  That someday, whether you like it or not, they will grow up, move away and be out in the world on their own...without you always by their side to protect them.

"Someday" suggests that you can try as hard as you want, but you can't protect them from everything, you have to let them go into the world on their own.  You CAN love them unconditionally, share the wisdom you've gained from your own life choices, let them make their mistakes and learn from them, and, eventually, enjoy the person that they have become. 

I'm going to read this book to my kids now, who are ready for bed.  Then I'm going to weep, while eating a huge bowl of ice cream salted with my tears.

February 28: Chin-ercise

As a parent of young children, one of the things I've noticed is how quickly and easily friends and family members can attribute certain facial features or body types to one parent or the other.  I always had a hard time with this--how can you tell that a 10 week old has her father's nose, or her mother's eyes?  They've barely developed their own features.  In my own family, there is very little clear resemblance between siblings, so much so that people are often surprised when they meet my sisters.  "Gosh, I guess I thought they'd look more like you."  Two of us are short, two are tall, I have curly hair, Mary's was always stick straight as a kid.  Our eyes are different, our noses are all different, our body types are different.

Naturally, when I was pregnant with both Hen & Kitten, I wondered what they would look like, and prayed that there were certain features that they might avoid inheriting.  Namely, my chin.

Having a roundish face is not always a bad thing.  People think I'm younger than I am, which has turned into a plus as I approach the age that shall not be said out loud.  The down side to the round face, is the chinny-chin-chin-chins (no hairs, just chins).  What have I done to mask the chins?  Well, pretty much anything I could think of.  Makeup tricks, hair styling, and I have almost perfected the art of sticking your face out far enough in pictures so as to avoid any chinage, but not so far that you look like a necky weirdo.  Perhaps my strangest habit, however (as if those weren't strange enough) is Chin-ercising.

I don't think there is an actual definition for chin-ercise, so I'll try my best to explain.  First, its origins, at least in my experience--I learned this from observing my mom, who would often be caught chin-ercising at random points throughout the day...making her coffee, starting the car, watching Survivor...it was like she didn't know she was doing it.  She'd tilt her head up, stretch her neck, and do little mouth-closing chin repetitions.  This sounds crazy.  You think I'm joking.  But look at her sometime and you'll notice her very youthful, lovely neck and chin.  Notice that I say "chin".  No plural.  It's really a very graceful lower-half of the face.  Without realizing it, I picked up chin-ercising.  I do it often.  It is one of my more common facial ticks (yes, there are more).  It is almost inevitable that I will pass this practice on to my daughter who was, I am sorry to say, blessed with my round face and chinny chins.  She will resist me, she will tell me that I "look so weeeird doing that.  DO NOT do it when my friends are here.  Soo embarrassing."  She will then find herself, at some unimportant moment in life, looking up, stretching her neck, and, without even thinking about it, starting a set of chin reps.

I hope to pass on more impressive, more graceful, less socially awkward traits and habits to my daughter, but for now, I'll at least own the weirdness of the chinercise.

February 27: Feelings

This picture illustrates how I feel about not having a working camera, especially just one month after committing to a year-long project involving said camera.  Universe, why are you working against me?

I was going to post this whole bit on how Henry has been talking about his feelings lately, and how he quickly realized that if he said "I feel saaaad", I would be at his side in two shakes of a lamb's tail, patting his hair, kissing his cheeks and saying "What's wrong my sweetpea??  Tell me why you are sad."  Almost every time, he'd pause, think about it for a while, and respond with the seemingly foolproof "...because I'n sick."  He's doing that whole bit right now, and since I'm scattered today and not feeling like playing the game, I'm totally ignoring it.  Bad parent?  I hope not.  Tired parent?   Yes, indeed, even after a two hour nap yesterday.  There is just never enough time in the day, and I'm not even back to work yet.