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It has been a long, hard day. A long, hard, sad, awful, horrible, endlessly exhausting day that you can read the gist of here. I really don't have the energy for an extra post about it. (I need to reserve that energy to eat bag after bag of fun-sized KitKat bars.)
Also, I'll leave comments open on this post in case you have something to say and want to comment here instead of at Parents.
When I left the salon yesterday, I got into the car and immediately pulled whatever was left of my hair back into the smallest, saddest ponytail you’ve ever seen. My hair? It is GONE. And at the time, I was not sure exactly how I felt about that. Yes, I was ready for a change, but no, I wasn’t absolutely positive that a “change” meant parting with eight months of hair growth and exposing the nape of my neck to the world (and any rambunctious neck acne, as well, THANK YOU PREGNANCY) at large every single day, no matter what.
And then I got home, and I pulled out the flat iron and I worked hard to make some sort of sense of the situation. My stylist did not use the flat iron when she finished up my hair yesterday afternoon, and that was fine with me because it was pouring outside when I left the salon and there was no hope of it staying properly straight and shiny in the humidity. I still tipped her well, as I did like what she was doing while I was sitting in the chair. It just got worrisome when I got into the car and everything was frizzing and I was trying to get a good look at the whole picture in the rearview mirror which, as you know, would only show me 1/8 of my enormous head at a time. And that tends to skew things a little bit.
I know, I know, WRAP IT UP ALREADY. Show us the pictures.
In case you forgot, this is the haircut recommended to me by Hair Goddess Whoorl and Her Followers. And although I specifically did not utter the words “Katie Holmes” during my description of what I wanted, my stylist DID say while blowing it out, “It really resembles the Katie Holmes haircut, which is so cute.” So Hair Thursday people, you got exactly what you wished for. And it turns out that I like it too.
Yesterday afternoon after a little work with the flat iron
Ponytail no longer option. Pigtails only solution for chopped-off hair.
Isn’t the best part of having an afternoon haircut the fact that the next morning you wake up and your hair still looks awesome and cute even though its been slept on? But if you’re me, and weather.com is down, and you can’t check and see if a rainstorm is headed your say, you go out for your afternoon walk and get caught in a friggin’ downpour and have to stand under the awning at Starbucks for 20 minutes and so this is the haircut that your husband comes home to. He did not exactly see the $70 value of it, is what I’m saying.
Am sad, sad, little drowned rat.
Last night I couldn’t fall asleep (working on a post about that for Parents) so I asked Dave to come upstairs and sit with me and we had been upstairs for about five minutes when we heard a suspicious noise. Not suspicious like a burglar or anything. No, no, suspicious like, “What on earth could be making that terrible dripping noise?”
Oh. I see.
Our roof is leaking and water is coming down the sides of our chimney and has ruined the ceiling in our living room. Dave rigged up some sort of protective system in the attic last night and this morning we found almost two gallons of water in the plastic tub we set under the hole in the roof. Guess whose impulsive $70 haircut can’t be returned to help pay the roofer? That’s right. MINE.
That’s okay though. I did it myself this morning and I still think I like it.
Now for Official Site Business. I have a question for those of you kind enough to follow both this blog and the one I write for Parents.com. Would you like me to link to new posts over there when they go up? I have gotten a few emails from people complaining that they are unable to receive feeds for the Parents site, and I know that must be annoying, and I don’t know how to fix it but they say they are working on it. So would it help if I figured out some sort of widgety thing for the sidebar so that you knew when a new post went up? Or posted a link to new Parents entries at the end of any new content I post here? Or am I totally acting like I'm some huge, important deal and you couldn't CARE LESS about this notification system, who do I think I am, freaking OPRAH WINFREY or something, GET OVER YOURSELF ALREADY? Wait. If it's that last one, just email me, don't put it in the comments. Because that would be embarrassing. For me, obviously. Not for you.
A few weeks ago we had a minor cold spell and it got me thinking about the upcoming winter and the months upon months of indoor activities that lie just ahead. And then I may have thanked God just a little weensy bit for global warming because at least the chance that we'll find ourselves snowbound inside the house this year is infinitely small. Asher loves being outside and so do I, and in addition to our daily three-mile walk, we often spend big chunks of time just loitering at the field at the end of our street, picking up leaves and sticks and cigarette butts (don't worry, I don't let him eat the unfiltered ones) and half-heartedly throwing a tennis ball to the dog.
Thinking about being cooped up inside the house all winter long with this and this was giving me hives.
But then a bright light shone down from Heaven and illuminated me and lo! I discovered I was pregnant. And suddenly there is no reason to worry about what we will find ourselves doing all winter long because I have already made a list that’s about sixteen single-spaced pages long. We have things that need to be done to this house before the baby arrives next summer. And Asher has agreed to help, even though I’m not completely sure he understood what he was agreeing to in the contract I had him sign. Also, I don’t really care. He will accompany me to IKEA a thousand times over and HE WILL LIKE IT. Or he is no son of mine.
I suppose it’s true that we really don’t have to do much of anything to this house in order for it to accommodate two children, at least, not at first. We have a cradle and a pack n play, and we could technically make the office a shared office/second bedroom. But as I told Dave: If I am going to be living in this tiny little house with two other people, ALL DAY LONG, I want to love being here. I want it to be EASY to live here. And Dave, who is terrified of me when I am pregnant, just said yes. Yes to whatever it is I want, yes he’ll help me, yes to anything, ANYTHING, please just don’t cry about it.
So here’s what I want.
I want a storage unit for all of our superfluous furniture, décor and mementos. I don’t want to put anything else in the attic except what BELONGS in the attic: baby clothing/toys, Christmas decorations, luggage, seasonal clothing and anything else that I deem necessary in my hormonal state of being.
I want the nursery to remain the nursery. It will be the new baby’s room. This is mostly so we don’t have to dismantle the crib. Nobody should have to see my husband put a crib together, even if it is a crib he has already put together once before.
I want to dismantle the office and make that room Asher’s new bedroom. It’s big enough that most of his toys will fit in there and therefore it can also serve as his playroom. Instead of the living room. Which is MY playroom. Because it's where I eat Fudgsicles and watch Ellen.
I want to reorganize our bedroom by taking out two substantial pieces of furniture, storing them, and replacing them with a small desk and file cabinet so that our home office will be in there instead. And while I’m at it, Dave has agreed to prime and repaint the walls and let me choose some new bedding to freshen up the place as a 30th birthday gift. I know, what kind of dork asks for a paint job for her birthday? ME. You should know I am positively GIDDY about it, too. Also, yes, I will be turning 30 soon, and no. No I don't want to talk about it.
Also, if time and money permit, I’d like to rip out and renovate the remaining upstairs bathroom. And hey! If all goes well, maybe next summer we’ll be able to redo the kitchen and install hardwoods throughout the downstairs level. (Laugh at me and I’ll cry. I PROMISE YOU I WILL CRY.)
Don't worry, there will be copious amounts of dimly lit and poorly framed Before and After photography as we continue together on this journey. This exciting journey of Preparation and Action, of Reorganization and Redecoration and Beautification, and most of all, of Trying to Keep Myself From Freaking Out About Having Another Baby.
Sixteen pages' worth of work should get me at least through to February, don't you think?
Guess which member of our household doesn't enjoy Asher's newfound button-pushing pasttime?
DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY IDEA HOW THIS HAPPENED? I am at a complete loss for words here.
The Great Denim Search of 2007 is over!
I wish I could tell you that it ended amicably, that I found my own personal Perfect Pair and that I didn’t even need to have them hemmed and that they were discounted so crazily that I was able to snap up six pairs in three different washes. Can I get an Amen? BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED.
What actually happened is much more… interesting. Shocking, even. Oh, hell. EARTH-SHATTERING.
What happened is that I took a pregnancy test last Sunday. It was positive.
And what happens now is that everything I was thinking about two or three or six weeks ago is considered NULL and also VOID.
Because I am having another baby. Another SURPRISE baby at that. The answer to your question is yes, I am a college-educated woman and I do know exactly how these things happen. (If you can believe that.)
Suddenly there is no need (or frankly, any lingering desire) for expensive jeans. Suddenly there is no week-long vacation in Hawaii next year. Suddenly there is a house that needs to be reorganized and repurposed and cleaned from top to bottom a million times, is it possible that you can be nesting in your sixth week? IS IT?
Also suddenly there is no wine and, huh. Well. Let’s just have a brief moment of silence for the wine. Thank you.
I have made a pact with myself to at least hold off on hyperventilating about breastfeeding until my third trimester. And then that? Reminds me that I’m going to HAVE ANOTHER THIRD TRIMESTER and after a third trimester usually comes a baby, A BABY, didn’t I just have one of those? Right. I did. And he will be 20 months older than his sibling and likely not able to form complete sentences and definitely not using anything other than his own pants as his personal toilet.
But also, listen, you guys. Did you know how much it turns out that I love being a mom? How much I love and adore the one I already have with everything that I have? How excited I am that I’m going to have two of them running around our miniscule little house, hitting each other over the head with toys and pushing each other down the stairs and generally creating havoc wherever they go? I can’t wait. Well, ok, actually I can totally do without the first four newborn months, but I am telling myself that if I can just get through them, it’ll be smooth sailing from there. Right? RIGHT? ANSWER ME!
I’ve already forgotten about the fact that three months ago I decided not to buy the stroller that could easily convert to a double because we weren’t going to have another for a couple more years. Ha! Are you laughing too? Isn’t that called Murphy’s Law or something? Also wasn’t Murphy’s Law like the Coffee Cup Slogan of the ‘80s?
It’s still really early in this pregnancy. But I decided that I wanted to share the news here, because this website is just how I document my life these days, and if something bad were to happen, I would want to write about it just like I do the good things. It’s just how I ride now, yo.
Also who knows, I may disappear for weeks on end, so at least you’ll know where I am, what I’m doing, and why: I’M NAPPING. Because I’m tired. Because I’m growing a fetus. A FETUS. Inside my body. All over again.
He kisses the vacuum. WITHOUT MY ENCOURAGEMENT.
Someone hand me a tissue... I seem to have gotten something in my eye.
We bought a dozen helium-filled latex balloons and one enormous mylar one for Asher's party last weekend. As expected, the latex balloons were withered and pointless the next morning; the mylar one, however, lives on, creeping around corners and refusing to mind its own business and generally scaring the crap out of us a thousand times a day. And also completely living up to its entire $11.99 retail value.
A couple of days ago I turned on the light in my bathroom and there it was, hovering above the toilet like a woman in an airport bathroom stall, silently exclaiming HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! and making this awful eerie noise as it scraped against the ceiling. I screamed. A few hours later it drifted soundlessly into our bedroom and took up residence above Dave's nightstand and then it spent most of the night getting intimate with the chandelier in our stairwell.
Yesterday though, it had started to lose a little bit of height, and was therefore floating with the top of the balloon about two feet from the ceiling and the bottom of the weighted ribbon about two feet off the floor. Which, believe me, is way creepier than it sounds. I mean, a balloon dragging against the ceiling is one thing, right? But a balloon just kind of, well, hanging there? In mid-air? IS OFF THE CHARTS SPOOKY. Especially if you're trying to watch Kid Nation and it waltzes quite purposefully down the stairs and begins advancing slowly and methodically towards you—like it knows exactly where you're sitting AND IS PLANNING TO BLOCK YOUR ENTIRE VIEW OF THE TELEVISION.
If Asher didn't love it so much, I'd have already slit it's little balloon throat.
The other thing Asher loves dearly is the vacuum, and he gets to see it a lot now that it's officially fall and we are constantly tracking in leaves and sticks and other fallish debris, like enormous spider crickets looking for a warm, cozy place to curl up and spend the winter with their families. I have been sucking them up in the Dyson with vigor over the last few days. It is so much more effective than any of my previous eradication attempts, attempts which included the use of magazines, shoes and also once, in desperation, throwing dinner plates at random over the countertop and onto the dining room floor. Yes. Really.
Last night I had to empty the canister before I could use it to suck up the mountain of dog hair in the upstairs hallway and wouldn't you know? One of those little buggers popped right back out and started hopping around the living room. AGAIN. Apparently when I sucked him up the first time (and I won't lie, I almost lose it every time I feel those one of those little bodies bouncing through the attachment hose) he landed in a wonderfully soft cushion of hair and dirt and Cheerios and stayed alive. INSIDE MY VACUUM. So disgusting. Also I am never emptying a vacuum canister ever again. It now joins Dave's Approved List of Household Duties That I Totally Ignore Even If He's Out Of Town For Six Entire Weeks, No You Absolutely Cannot Expect Me To Ever Empty The Diaper Pail.
Speaking of which, does everyone have awful-smelling diaper pails? Ours absolutely reeks, even though we empty it regularly and spray it with Lysol every chance we get and let it sit outside overnight once a week to air out. It smells truly awful, to the point that I was almost in tears last week as I went in to get Asher after his nap and realized I was making him sleep two feet away from what could have easily passed for a compost pile. Is it just the particular model we have? Or is this just something that starts happening to every diaper pail after a certain amount of time? Or is it possible that my kid's poop is a more volatile poop that the diaper pail wasn't designed to handle?
Also, while you're at it, what is up with the fact that I weighed myself on two different scales this week for a recorded difference of EIGHT POUNDS? Eight. Pounds. I can see a two, three, even a four pound difference from one scale to the next, but eight pounds? WHICH SCALE AM I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE?
Now I've got work to do. And I can't be expected to do it with this stupid balloon hanging around looking over my shoulder. What does a girl have to do to get a little privacy around here?
One month 
Two months 
Three months 
Four months 
Five months 
Six months 
Seven months 
Eight months 
Nine months 
Ten months 
Eleven months 
ONE YEAR OLD.
We love you, Asher. More each and every day.
Love, Mom and Dad
Volume One is here. Volume One also considered unsuccessful since the weather did not cooperate and I ended up wearing a sweater instead of any of the cute ensembles pictured (of which Number Two was the clear winner). This time, I have been assured by various local weathermen that there is no doubt that it will be 90 degrees and rather humid on Sunday. Doesn't that sound like great weather for an outdoor party? I am going to be so embarrassed if I drip sweat onto people's cupcakes. Wait, when. Make that WHEN I drip sweat onto people's cupcakes.
Today's photos also feature my toilet and towel bar. Now,without further ado!
Option Number One:
White Gap Favorite Tee
Yellow Ann Taylor Outlet (breezy, cotton) skirt
Possibly paired with green flats pictured here
Option Number Two:
Mossimo for Target dress
Probably worn with brown kitten heel sandals
Option Number Three:
Banana Republic denim skirt
Target Long and Lean orange tank (autumn orange, not hunting orange)
Probably would be worn with flip flops
Well? What do you think?
Asher has recently taken to waving at absolutely everything he can unmistakably identify as a person. You're probably thinking, "How adorable!" and that is where you're kind of right, but also very very wrong.
Did you know that sometimes when your child waves at people, those people think it is an open invitation to start engaging you in a CONVERSATION? Even though, HELLO, was it actually ME who waved at you or this little 25-pound person I've forcibly strapped into my shopping cart and am trying to prevent from chewing through an unopened box of Band-aids? Because I've got to tell you, the 25-pounder isn't much for conversation these days unless all you want to hear from him is "Mama" and something that sounds like either "balloon" or "vacuum." (It's hard to tell, really, as he is equally passionate about both.)
Aside from the other conversations I've had with weirdos this week, I've also participated in polite exchanges with a really old grandmother-type with what appeared to be an entire tube of lipstick on her teeth, a man wearing denim overalls and a beret (the French would be understandably appalled), and a woman wearing stirrup pants. STIRRUP PANTS! That Asher. He just does not discriminate. And I suffer the consequences.
The problem lies more with me. In situations like these, I find that I just cannot stop talking. There will be a lull in the conversation, a perfect opportunity for escape, for a pleasant, "Have a great day!", for a smile and a "Nice meeting you, but we've got to get our shopping done before naptime," but instead I say some cockamamie thing like, "What were your granddaughters' names again? And just what part of Indiana do they live in?" and then I am right back in the thick of it again and looking for the next appropriate escape, which I will no doubt screw up again. AND I WILL BE TALKING EXCITEDLY ABOUT THINGS I DON'T GIVE A FLYING FART ABOUT. ("Why, I've always wanted to learn how to crochet! What kinds of things do you make?")
Why isn't the waving attracting the hot guys? Or, I don't know, women my age who want to be friends? Or wealthy old men that we can befriend and then inherit billions from? WHY THE STIRRUP PANTS AND THE BERET?
In other news, Asher's birthday party is on Sunday and his first present arrived today. He has already dismantled and attempted to ingest the bow. Tomorrow I am going to try to make a couple of batches of these (no paper plates to soil, I am all-powerful-granola-crunchy-earth-friendly-birthday-party mom) and hit up the Wegmans prepared foods aisle for some stuff I can pass off as my own cooking. Did you know that people just take your word for it if you put it in one of your own cute bowls? Last time I did this I was very honest and if anyone complimented my pasta salad, I said, "Well, if it's good, it's because I got it at Wegmans," but on Sunday? I am just going to stick with, "Thank you." So much less painful for all parties involved, don't you think?
Now, here's the real question. Do you want to see the outfits I'm trying to choose between for the party? Do you? Do you? I swear, no berets. Or stirrup pants. Just crazily-discounted Ann Taylor LOFT all around.
