Monday, March 31, 2008
The New Leaf
You might be wondering what's up with all these postings. I have been such a slacker with this blog, but I'm tellin' ya people that I've turned over a new leaf. I've been inspired by my dear friend aberjaber who maintains this fabulous blog while also maintaining six times as many children as I have (did I do that math right? She has 6, I have 1). Also I've discovered that people only check your blog if you update it on a regular basis. So here's the new and improved blog. Can anyone suggest a new and improved title??
Judge for yourself...
I know these look like cheeseball MySpace self-portraits, but this is all I got...Notice the new bathroom paint job? Lovely sunshine crayolaness.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Spring Break Euge '08 cont.
I got this new haircut on Saturday from my super-awesome new(ish) stylist, Jesse. Now you're probably thinking, "Wait a sec, I don't remember you having super-awesome hair?" Well, I haven't always, but these days it's not been looking so bad. You probably remember me from the Melissa hairstyling days, and yes, that was pretty bad. Too blond, too big, too... ugh. Let's just forget about that. Jesse is amazing and he gave me this great haircut last summer that made me feel like I was wearing a wig- my hair was so not my hair and I loved it! So this time I told him I was ready for something new and exciting and short. Hairstylists get really excited when you tell them that you want your hair short and I think they are always a little bit afraid of freaking you out by cutting it too short, but I assured him that short-short is what I really wanted.
So then he did something that just cracked me up. He literally spent about five minutes staring at my head and moving my hair all around and was obviously brewing up a plan to do some incredibly amazing hair stylist maneuvers.
Snip snip and away went all my hair. Jesse wears this tool belt type thingy (maybe it makes him feel more masculine? He is straight, BTW, with a wife and three kids), and he used almost all of his tools on me, texturizing, volumizing and so forth.
The result: super cute, super short, super flattering, and me feeling super relieved!
These were his exact words after finishing the cut and spending what I thought was an unusually long time admiring his work:
"I better give you some of my cards, because this is the kind of haircut that people will stop you on the street about."
Can you believe he actually said this? I was dying inside!
But here's the bad news. Today was day 1 of me attempting to style it on my own and it really doesn't look nearly as super cute today as it did yesterday. So now I'm thinking that the only people who will be stopping me on the street will be wondering what the hell someone like me (who clearly does not have enough time to spend styling herself) is doing with a haircut that so clearly requires styling effort and expensive products that I so obviously could not afford to own.
Now I know you are all dying to see this new haircut and judge it for yourself (and you can keep those comments to yourself, thank you, unless you plan on telling me how amazingly hot it makes me look, in that case go right ahead), but you'll just have to wait until I can get some photos uploaded, a process that takes way to long thanks to technical difficulties between the camera, Brent's computer, my computer and my brain.
So then he did something that just cracked me up. He literally spent about five minutes staring at my head and moving my hair all around and was obviously brewing up a plan to do some incredibly amazing hair stylist maneuvers.
Snip snip and away went all my hair. Jesse wears this tool belt type thingy (maybe it makes him feel more masculine? He is straight, BTW, with a wife and three kids), and he used almost all of his tools on me, texturizing, volumizing and so forth.
The result: super cute, super short, super flattering, and me feeling super relieved!
These were his exact words after finishing the cut and spending what I thought was an unusually long time admiring his work:
"I better give you some of my cards, because this is the kind of haircut that people will stop you on the street about."
Can you believe he actually said this? I was dying inside!
But here's the bad news. Today was day 1 of me attempting to style it on my own and it really doesn't look nearly as super cute today as it did yesterday. So now I'm thinking that the only people who will be stopping me on the street will be wondering what the hell someone like me (who clearly does not have enough time to spend styling herself) is doing with a haircut that so clearly requires styling effort and expensive products that I so obviously could not afford to own.
Now I know you are all dying to see this new haircut and judge it for yourself (and you can keep those comments to yourself, thank you, unless you plan on telling me how amazingly hot it makes me look, in that case go right ahead), but you'll just have to wait until I can get some photos uploaded, a process that takes way to long thanks to technical difficulties between the camera, Brent's computer, my computer and my brain.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Happy Spring!
First off, happy spring break! Ah, the luxury of a week off from those damn kids. Sorry if I sound a little less than "teacher of the year" worthy (which I actually was nominated for, BTW), but it's that time of the year when *love* is in the middle school air. There's just something about spring that kicks those adolescent hormones into gear and makes the kids louder and crazier than normal. They also smell worse and it won't be long before I'll have to have the "taking a shower and wearing deodorant everyday" talk with my 7th graders. So, needless to say I am enjoying my week off.
Anyhoo, since I have been home this week, Jack and I have been out and about finding new and fun things to do each day. Neither one of us appreciates a full day stuck at home, so our quests for adventure have led us to various places in the past few days. On Monday and Tuesday we hit up all the local parks (our favorite by far is the Skinner's Butte park, which has soft everything). Now one unfortunate thing I have noticed about our local neighborhood park (Acorn Park) is that it is frequented by loud, foul-smelling, potty-mouth teenagers! And you might think that since I work with teens, I must actually like them. Let me clarify, I like the teenagers that I know by name who are stuck in a room under my jurisdiction. Those kids at the park? Can't stand 'em. What I want to know is why they can't just go find someone's basement to smoke and swear and make out in, like we did back in my day.
Jack and I also hit up the mall for its indoor play structure on Wednesday when it was raining and snowing (!?). Of course having to go all the way to the stupid mall made me feel justified to shop and our "free" play time at the mall was actually pretty darn expensive.
All this time at the park and the mall and the library and other places with high concentrations of moms/dads and kids, has given me pause to reflect on some of the ideas that I had about parenting before Jack came along. I am embarrassed to admit that I once viewed a kid with a snotty nose as the unfortunate victim of child neglect. Ha. Now that my pockets are overflowing with used Kleenex and my dryer lint trap is a fire hazard, I realize that having a snot nose is just part of being a kid. I just wish I didn't have booger smear marks on all the knees of my pants, but oh well. Secondly, this whole "sharing" thing is overrated. I'm so tired of having to intervene between Jack and another kid who are trying to gouge each other's eyes out over the same toy/slide/swing/rock etc. I say we just let them fight it out, survival of the fittest style. But instead I rush to the scene to "explain" to Jack (in a voice loud enough for the other parent to hear) how toys/slides/swings/rocks are "for shar-ing". Like he gets it. Most middle schoolers haven't mastered that concept yet, either. But, the old, before-kid me thought that kids who didn't share were spoiled brats with bad parents, so there you go.
In other news, Jack is finally sleeping through the night (as I type this I realize I have probably just damned myself to another 13 months of sleep deprivation). Not every night, mind you, but enough so that I feel there really is actually a light at the end of this tunnel and that maybe (just maybe) all those other parents weren't lying about their kids sleeping through the night. He's also finally going to bed on his own (no rocking, nursing) for the first time in his little life and we didn't even have to do the dreaded cry "it" out method (what is "it" anyway?). Whew! All this sleep stuff is exhausting. Oh, and Jack is finally on a real nap schedule for the first time in his life (talk about bad parenting).
Four more days of spring break to go. I'm sure we'll do something photo-worthy and I'll post again soon with some actual pictures to accompany my rambling.
Anyhoo, since I have been home this week, Jack and I have been out and about finding new and fun things to do each day. Neither one of us appreciates a full day stuck at home, so our quests for adventure have led us to various places in the past few days. On Monday and Tuesday we hit up all the local parks (our favorite by far is the Skinner's Butte park, which has soft everything). Now one unfortunate thing I have noticed about our local neighborhood park (Acorn Park) is that it is frequented by loud, foul-smelling, potty-mouth teenagers! And you might think that since I work with teens, I must actually like them. Let me clarify, I like the teenagers that I know by name who are stuck in a room under my jurisdiction. Those kids at the park? Can't stand 'em. What I want to know is why they can't just go find someone's basement to smoke and swear and make out in, like we did back in my day.
Jack and I also hit up the mall for its indoor play structure on Wednesday when it was raining and snowing (!?). Of course having to go all the way to the stupid mall made me feel justified to shop and our "free" play time at the mall was actually pretty darn expensive.
All this time at the park and the mall and the library and other places with high concentrations of moms/dads and kids, has given me pause to reflect on some of the ideas that I had about parenting before Jack came along. I am embarrassed to admit that I once viewed a kid with a snotty nose as the unfortunate victim of child neglect. Ha. Now that my pockets are overflowing with used Kleenex and my dryer lint trap is a fire hazard, I realize that having a snot nose is just part of being a kid. I just wish I didn't have booger smear marks on all the knees of my pants, but oh well. Secondly, this whole "sharing" thing is overrated. I'm so tired of having to intervene between Jack and another kid who are trying to gouge each other's eyes out over the same toy/slide/swing/rock etc. I say we just let them fight it out, survival of the fittest style. But instead I rush to the scene to "explain" to Jack (in a voice loud enough for the other parent to hear) how toys/slides/swings/rocks are "for shar-ing". Like he gets it. Most middle schoolers haven't mastered that concept yet, either. But, the old, before-kid me thought that kids who didn't share were spoiled brats with bad parents, so there you go.
In other news, Jack is finally sleeping through the night (as I type this I realize I have probably just damned myself to another 13 months of sleep deprivation). Not every night, mind you, but enough so that I feel there really is actually a light at the end of this tunnel and that maybe (just maybe) all those other parents weren't lying about their kids sleeping through the night. He's also finally going to bed on his own (no rocking, nursing) for the first time in his little life and we didn't even have to do the dreaded cry "it" out method (what is "it" anyway?). Whew! All this sleep stuff is exhausting. Oh, and Jack is finally on a real nap schedule for the first time in his life (talk about bad parenting).
Four more days of spring break to go. I'm sure we'll do something photo-worthy and I'll post again soon with some actual pictures to accompany my rambling.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Birthday, Bikes, and Bullies
Jack got his first ever official Red Flyer bike for his birthday. His favorite part is the bell (second favorite is the streamers), but once he figured out how to make it scoot, that seemed pretty cool to him, as well.
This week is parent-teacher conferences and I've been mentally preparing for the inevitable conversations that I'll be having with certain parents. How do you gently tell someone that their child is a jerk? A bully? A threat to society? When I picked Jack up from daycare today, his teacher informed me that he was pushing the other babies to the ground, laying on them, and pulling their hair and biting. Is this how it all begins??
We have reached the conclusion that Jack becoming more and more like a puppy. He needs to be exercised on a daily basis or he gets stir crazy. There's a cute little park close to our house and Jack loves to go and play there. He figured out how to climb the play structure all by himself (so scary to watch!!) and he would spend hours going down the slide if we let him.
Jack really really really wants to run out into the street. We are trying to teach him about the sidewalk and how great it is to walk in relative safety, but to no avail. He prefers the street and all of its excitement. Great. One thing we have noticed is that Jack does not watch his feet at all when he is walking. Didn't they do all those studies back in the 1950's about babies having depth perception? Jack has none. He would walk right off a cliff if given the chance.
This week is parent-teacher conferences and I've been mentally preparing for the inevitable conversations that I'll be having with certain parents. How do you gently tell someone that their child is a jerk? A bully? A threat to society? When I picked Jack up from daycare today, his teacher informed me that he was pushing the other babies to the ground, laying on them, and pulling their hair and biting. Is this how it all begins??
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
