I had a big meeting today, and yesterday while plotting what I should wear it occurred to me that I hadn’t REALLY done my hair in over a month. My summer haircare routine has been blow dry and straighten my bangs, and let the rest fall where it may. I’ve been working for months now to grow it out and it was finally, FINALLY long enough to get into a ponytail, or twist into some messy version of an updo.  So I looked at it in the mirror and thought, “damn I’m frizzy”.  Spending most weekends immersed in chlorine at the pool hasn’t helped my ends any although my natural color lightened so that part wasn’t too bad.

I called my salon, which is the salon I’ve been going to since I unceremoniously dumped my other stylist of three years, and unsurprisingly they couldn’t fit me in for a cut in the next 2 hours.

Because I am ridiculously impatient, and because I am a hairdresser whore, I decided I couldn’t wait until the proffered Tuesday appointment to go see my regular hair stylist who’s been helping me grow out my layers and who I really like and who listens when I tell her “just a trim”.  So I called up the salon I used to go to knowing my ex-hairdresser had just left there and HOORAY!  They were able to fit me in, see you in 20 minutes!  I explained to the new girl all about growing out my layers and trying to get some length and we agreed on a 1/2 inch off the botton and a little more off the layers since that was where more of the damage was.

As I watched her cut, I noticed that she was going excruciatingly slowly.  Then I saw her lift a section and chop a good 2 inches off.  At that point I carefully inquired as to her last place of employment, which was when she told me she just graduated from beauty school three months ago.  Fighting rising panic, I thought, “Ok well, three months that’s not ideal but she seems to know what she’s doing even if she is horribly slow.”

Turns out she may have graduated three months ago, but had only been cutting hair for a few weeks.  She also apparently had a gigantic problem with me not keeping up my color, and after offering several times to give me a “demi-color” thusly decided to go to town on the trim that I requested trying to cut off everything that was blonder than my roots.   After the clumsiest blow dry I’ve ever had, and a flat iron which she did despite me telling her not to, she turned me around to see the back.

It looked like a lawnmower had run over my head.  A hundred different lengths.  Hair as flat as if I’d been caught in a rainstorm.  Because I am from Upstate NY and we only do big hair, I am not a flat iron kind of girl - I wear big hair to disguise my big head.  By the time one of the master stylists came over to take a look, I had gone from tentatively suggesting that it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to being almost teary and trying not to flip out.  After some discussion of what we agreed upon at the beginning of the cut, new girl was sent away and I was spirited away to a different chair by a comfortingly big-haired master stylist who talked soothingly while she fixed what she could.

6 months of growing out my hair laying on the floor of the salon, and I have the exact same haircut I was sick of when I started growing it.  On the bright side, if there is one, hey- free haircut.  So a note to my future self – that’s what you get for being a hairdresser whore.  Your luck ran out.

I also took a week and went to visit my parents, which was an awesome and relaxing trip despite the almost 10 hour drive.  We had beautiful weather and the trip consisted mostly of park visits, making ice cream, bubbles, and other good stuff.  It is so amazing to me to watch these two distinct little personalities as they emerge and grow and leave impressions on people around them.

Bubbles at Grandma and Grandpa’s House

At the park…

I really miss the mountains.  And this is one of my favorite pictures of Emily Kate:

Her expression says so much about her personality, the raised eyebrow and half smirk indicating that she had a bigger plan for that water table…

My dad and I were laughing too hard to stop her.  I think that should be the goal this summer…to be laughing so hard that you can let the little things go.

Obviously I didn’t willingly sit back and let things happen, but not being able to talk my way out of my speeding ticket or express my EXTREME displeasure at yet another extension for the kicked-out kid at daycare turned out to be a fine way of being forced to learn something.  My tendency to obsess over and constantly talk about whatever happened to me really just prolongs the agony and annoyance.  It’s now been over a week since I lost my voice and I still can’t talk normally.  Trying to “save” the voice I have left forces me to choose my words carefully, to be discretionary when yelling at the kids, and to think about whether some things really need to be said at all.

With that in mind, the 24-hour change in Alex is remarkable now that this other child is no longer at daycare.  A bully since he was old enough to walk, this boy kept the other kids constantly on the lookout for sneaky pushes and pokes, and delivered Emily Kate’s first and only smack to the face when she was only 10 months old.  When he wasn’t picking at the other kids, he was screaming his head off about something or other, refusing to follow directions and loudly expressing displeasure over everything he was asked to do.  I know this not only from observation, but because my kids started to bring it home over the last few months, reacting as if I’d told them I was going to chop off a toe when I would offer a snack they didn’t like.

I realized last night how much the situation was wearing on me, on all of us, when I thought back to those mornings when I couldn’t wait to get back to my car and away from this child.  Just 10 minutes with him was a horrible way to start my morning, and here I was dropping off my kids to spend the next 8 hours with him.  Then they would come home defensive and cranky and I would wonder why, and even worse get mad at them for behavior that was pretty much inevitable given what they were exposed to all day. 

Last night and this morning, Alex in particular was a different child – sweet, helpful, polite, playful.  It’s as if he understands that the situation is finally remedied and he doesn’t have to be defensive anymore.  He nicely told me he didn’t like his dinner and wasn’t going to eat it, rather than whining and getting angry.  He gave happy hugs goodbye this morning and at lunch Miss S texted me to tell me what a great day he was having, participating in lessons and songs when often he is withdrawn and quiet.

I feel so incredibly lucky today that a situation I had a hand in causing (by referring the parents there in the first place) is finally done.  I’m not living in a dream world, I know my kids will still act out and act up and argue, and that’s fine.  Because rather than coming from a place of defensiveness, it’s learning and exploring who they are within boundaries set by discipline and rules that will eventually make them productive members of our family and society.

(The speeding ticket parallel is not lost on me with that last statement by the way.  But I would still like to point out that everyone around me was going as fast or faster, and the radar was definitely faulty, and I couldn’t see the sign because trees were in the way.  Ahem. )

Monday:  Show up at daycare and in some freaky, horrible version of Groundhog Day – the bad kid was there.  After I spent the entire weekend celebrating and detoxing the kids from the bad habits of screaming and eye-rolling and tantruming over every freaking thing.  He got kicked out in the beginning of April.  First he had two weeks notice, then an apparent review of the contract between parents and daycare determined they would actually get three weeks notice.  On Monday, they showed up claiming that an extension had been granted by text message and in some sort of delayed reaction mode, Miss S did not slam the door in their faces or make them prove their claim.

Also on Monday, I totally lost my voice, which I believe to be God’s way of protecting me from saying something I shouldn’t as I live in this freaky parallel universe where this kid just WON’T. GO. AWAY.

Tuesday:  I come back to the house, still silent and voiceless, to find that a garbage truck has dumped a literal ton of garbage on the street in front of my house.  Apparently the driver, who meant to hit “COMPRESS” had a slip of the finger and pushed “DUMP” instead.  Is it just me, or should those buttons really be further apart?

Wednesday:  Speeding ticket while taking Emily Kate to gymnastics class.  All around me red Corvettes and jacked up Oldsmobiles roar past, and yet the motorcycle cop opts to pull over the mom driving a minivan.  Still no voice, so I can’t even argue or demand to see the radar gun.  Af friend of mine pointed out that with my fine, I’ll be helping to keep city employees on the payroll.  Like the one who dumped a ton of garbage in front of my house.

Am so annoyed by this, that I decide to take a Cinco de Mayo style lunch because I heard tequila is good therapy for a variety of ills.  I’m starting to wish I’d paid more attention to the baby sign language videos because I’d like to be able to say more than “milk”, “please”, and “thank you”.

Thursday:  My work computer, which had been acting funny by refusing to play sounds when I watch YouTube videos and instead made loud, insistent, DOS-like beeps suddenly works again.  There was no interference from me, although I would say it’s a good thing I didn’t take it to the tech support guys because it probably would have been one of those embarrassing situations where they can’t find the problem and it would indeed work swimmingly for them.

Also, Brett makes a doctor’s appointment for me because  I SHALL NO LONGER BE SILENCED.  Verdict:  there’s nothing they can do.  You can try this prescription for steroids but it really just takes time and resting of the voice.  Same astute friend points out that when my voice starts to return I’ll know that I’m leaving the parallel universe and returning to my version of normalcy.  Until then, I just watch and learn.  And whisper.

Happy Earth Day! Although it seems somewhat silly that every channel on TV has changed their logos to green in honor of your day, I get it.  We are all cogs in the marketing wheel.  I do my best to help you every day of the year, so today I’d like to ask just one favor.

If you could cut it out with the grass pollen around here, I’d truly appreciate it.  My eyes burn, my nose itches, and both my kids have green goop leaking out their eyes and noses.  It truly is disgusting for us and kind of self-defeating on your part, because the amount of tissues a three-year-old goes through when faced with a continuously runny nose is truly appalling.

Thanks, and enjoy your day!

H

Today I picked Em up from daycare at lunch, skivving off work for most of the afternoon for an early dive into fun. Which means she took a three hour nap, while I puttered around fretting about various work and life-related things, getting it out of my system like I do every Friday. When she woke up we went to early dinner, then to Rita’s for Italian Ice where we ran into some old friends, then came back home just in time for a bath and bed.

As I look ahead to the weekend, most of it is centered around eating and sleeping, which is totally how it should be. I’m debating taking a boot camp class on Sunday morning, debating partly because I’m a little scared of the guy that teaches it but also because I’m a lot scared of the diseased hellions running around the gym daycare. We’ll have to see about that one. Maybe we could go for pancakes instead.

In other great news, the child at daycare that was the cause of so many angst-y posts in the past year has been given the boot. Hooray! Next week is his last week. There are some mornings when I drop off the kids that this other child is yelling and behaving so badly that I can’t stand to be around him for 10 minutes, so I don’t know how this has lasted as long as it did. I’m just thankful that he’ll soon be somewhere else.

Time for me to go watch my new obsession…Cake Boss.  Happy weekend!

What I can remember is that for the second week this month, (I mean last month) I spent the better part of a week in bed, sicker than I’ve ever been. Well except for two weeks ago when I had the worst stomach flu I’ve ever had.  This time I had the worst sinus infection I’ve ever had, with so much pressure in my face I’m surprised it didn’t puff up like a blowfish before exploding.  I finally gave in to the headaches and succumbed to fever on Sunday, when I decided I was still going to be stubborn and refuse to go to the doctor until Monday since I knew I’d just get antibiotics except on Sunday they would cost me $60 more because I’d have to co-pay at a clinic instead of my doc.

Today was the first day I’ve felt less like death and well enough to discover I’ve apparently developed some sort of weird intolerance for amox!cillian since I had it the last time.  I had to actually get dressed and go to the office to give a brief, and lo and behold on the way there discovered that not only am I dizzy and spacy but that I ITCH.  EVERYWHERE.  And am also having inappropriate emotional responses…like crying because Trader Joe’s carries all natural jelly beans.  I’m sucking it up for now because I’m guessing another antibiotic won’t be any better and I’m almost half done anyway.  And the brief?  Let’s just say not the best one I’ve ever given.  Mainly because I made the poor decision while I was still spaced out to not bring any water in with me and my mouth got so dry I might as well have stuffed a slice of bread in there.

Last night, Brett and I were snorting our way through Modern Family when Alex started crying a weird, sad little cry that warranted immediate response, as this was no Mommy-I-dropped-my-book kind of cry.  I came upstairs after first responder Brett ominously yelled down the stairs, “Honey, you better come up here!” to find Alex sitting up in bed with a sleep sack hanging off his face and immediately fell down laughing. That was before I realized that he hadn’t gotten his lip stuck in the zipper, but that he’d actually gotten the zipper pull stuck between his teeth.

I sent Brett downstairs for bolt cutters and he, wisely, came back with a flashlight.  Strapping on his engineering boots, he calculated the precise angle and insertion point and was able to maneuver it back out with a minimum of pain.  As opposed to my method which was to give a little tug and be moderately surprised when it didn’t pop loose.  After administering some cold water and a gentle admonishment not to chew on zippers anymore, we snuck back downstairs and proceeded to laugh ourselves silly for about ten more minutes.

In other Alex news, he ate a cheeseburger for dinner tonight.  This HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, as indicated by the all-caps-headline-nature of the post title.  He also cleaned his plate of sweet potato fries, oranges, asked for yogurt and a cheese stick; and also a cookie.    Yay for all the comments telling me kids go through eating phases!  And also, umm…yay growth spurt?  Here I was thinking that last year’s shorts might actually work for another season instead of looking like Daisy Dukes.

The MBA program that I had been excited to start was now an inconvenience – if fact if I could have remembered my login to the add/drop system before the drop deadline I probably would have quit it before I even started.

“What is wrong with me?” I wondered.  “Shouldn’t I be happy and free and loving the whole world with my newfound yogic knowledge and one-ness?”

I knew part of what was annoying me was that my yoga studio dreams had been shelved after our Yoga as a Business module…it’s a great lifestyle in theory, but the financial and practical realities are not something that I’m prepared to take on right now – a 75% cut in my take-home pay, and that would be after a few years of successful operation, plus the stress and committment of running your own business – not so much.

Today I happened across a blog post that explained to me exactly what was wrong – my body and mind had been “re-wired” in the weeks of teacher training immersion.  (This link is worth checking out by the way, just for the amazing pictures.)

I found myself stressed and anxious, longing for the comfort of knowing that I had time carved out to practice and learn yoga from great teachers.  My brain and heart was rebelling against having to try to find meaning in DoD instructions on how to secure network systems, especially knowing that most of the time my analysis and advice would be ignored anyway.

I was re-wired in the same way both times on maternity leave, too…used to a certain lifestyle and with a specific ebb and flow to my days.  Getting back to the work that pays the bills was exactly that – getting back to work, and it sucked.

Sometimes I think that I’m really connected to my emotions and very self-aware.  This time though, I really had no idea until I stumbled on that post, or maybe I knew but couldn’t find the words to clarify the emotions.

I wonder what situations and circumstances cause other people to be re-wired.  It seems to quite easily happen to me, anytime I step away from work into something I love.  Is that all it takes?  And what if you have a job that you love?  Is it still so quick to happen, or are you basically content all the time?

It never occurred to me when I graduated from high school that I would do anything other than go to college, get a business-related degree, and get a decent, stable job.  I wonder how life would have been different if I’d acknowledged more of the things I LIKED to do, like fitness and writing and design; rather than what I thought I SHOULD do.

Now I need to figure out how keep the new wiring so that it peacefully co-exists and supports, rather than rebel against, the existing way of life.

Anyway, while I aspire to feed my kids whole foods, unfortunately my kids don’t always agree.  Tonight for dinner I convinced Brett to not only eat but also cook vegetarian chili (!) while Alex and I made beer bread from a Trader Joe’s mix.  We all sat down at the table , we gave the kids the main dish, the bread, and water with splash of juice to drink.  AAAANNNNDD….not one bite of chili made it into either kidlet.  We try to give the kids a plate with a variety of things and they have to at least try everything on the plate.  If they don’t, there is nothing else to eat but fruit – an apple or banana, sometimes grapes if we have them although usually the fruit is incorporated on the plate in the first place.

Emily Kate usually does pretty well, tonight being the exception for her.   Alex though…well, he probably goes to bed without eating a single thing since his afternoon snack three times a week.  There were even sweet potatoes in the chili and at one point in both their lives, sweet potatoes were the one food they would never turn down.

I’m so sick of all the articles in parenting magazines giving me tips that don’t work to get my kids to eat what’s on their plates, but the one thing that makes me feel better about all the failed advice is that I can’t be the only one with this problem or there wouldn’t be so many worthless magazine articles on it.  So far the only thing that’s worked for me is hiding veggies in smoothies or spaghetti sauce.  (Yes, I own and like Deceptively Delicious.)

So I need parents out there to tell me what you do.  Am I an ogre of a parent because my kids go to bed without eating dinner?  How can I become the food martyr I aspire to if my kids won’t eat thier stupid vegetables?  Not to mention wasting organic food hurts much more than wasting junk food.

I grew up with an adopted brother.  The “adopted” part is important, because my parents didn’t know the child they were getting was born to an alcoholic mother, who abused her body and his the entire time she was pregnant.  He came to our family when he was 6 months old, sickly and weak, and nearly died before his first birthday.  A few years later, he was diagnosed as hyperactive with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome along with a laundry list of other things, including violent behavior and aggression. 

One of the suggestions our pediatrician gave my mom was the Feingold Diet and we followed it to the letter.  No artificial colors, flavors, mint, or chocolate.  As a kid, I hated never having Kool-Aid in our fridge, and used to love going to visit friends who ate mac n’ cheese from a blue box.  But as much as I resented having to follow the diet, to say the difference in my brother’s behavior was noticeable would be an understatement.  When he ate anything artificial, he went absolutely crazy with rage – kicking people and walls, screaming, and looking like he couldn’t contain the anger that shook his body.  To even write about this is difficult, because most people who know me in my adult life don’t even know he exists.  It’s always been easier to be an only child when people ask, rather than explain the complicated relationship that I still haven’t fully accepted.

Several months ago, I noticed Alex having the same out of control reactions to little things.  My mom was the one who first pointed out that his worst behavior came right after a treat of some sort: a lollipop or a candy apple. It made me physically sick to think that my child had the same behavioral reaction to artificial colors.  How was this possible?  I exercised and ate organic, healthy food while I was pregnant, and now I was going to have to go through the same drill that my mom used to, explaining politely that , “No, he doesn’t want/can’t eat those yellow crackers/birthday cake/bright red popsicle” to the other moms.   Even more disturbing to me though, was the thought of Emily Kate growing up witnessing the cycle of violent behavior, frustration, and rage that I grew up with, so to reject something that I knew worked seemed stupid, despite hating the idea of it.

I started reading.  I read a book on the Feingold Diet, and I read The Unhealthy Truth.  I convinced my husband that the majority of our grocery shopping had to be at Trader Joe’s.  (TJ’s products don’t have any artificial colors or flavors.)  Then I started noticing articles popping up everywhere – on growth horomones and high-fructose corn syrup, on pesticides and antibiotics.  All of a sudden it seems like our society is starting to realize that how unhealthy we are is directly proportionate to how much we’ve messed up our food.  A simplistic summary is to say that everything from allergies to obesity to behavior has a root cause in what we eat because our bodies don’t know how to process all the crap that we put in our food.

Yesterday one of my friends on facebook posted a link to this article on MSNBC.  This is a decent introduction to what I’m talking about, but it focuses more on why we’re fat, rather than why we’re unhealthy.  At least it’s a start.  The bottom line is we all need to wake up and stop trusting that just because a corporation or the government says that something is healthy and safe doesn’t mean it is.  When animals get high doses of antibiotics, we do too when we eat them.  Genetically modified corn hasn’t been modified to be healthier, it has been modified to be resistant to pests – which means it has pesticides in it’s genes.  We have no idea what artificial horomones in milk and meat are doing to our endocrine systems.  Stop feeding your kids colored goldfish crackers.  Don’t cook with Splenda or mix it into smoothies like the commercial tells you to – why does your smoothie need sugar anyway?

This post isn’t preaching about being all organic or vegetarian, but an encouragement to be more aware and make simple changes where you can and where you see the need.  There is so much we don’t know about “food technology” but the evidence is growing that it isn’t the best thing for us.  So why not become educated?