daddy’s shouldn’t cut hair

to all my  fellow mamas out there . . . you’ll probably totally get what i’m going to say in this post.

i know that i’ve stated in an earlier post about what a great teammate i found to go through life with.  my husband is a great dad.  he often has great ideas, though what i’m about to describe admittedly wasn’t one of them!

last week while eating dinner, we were all commenting and laughing about gus’s crazy hair and how he needs a haircut.  tom asked me when it was going to happen and said that we should just go ahead and cut it ourselves with the trimmers upstairs.  now, being the girl that i am i said, “well, i want to take him somewhere to get his first haircut, but i guess that we should just save the money and do it ourselves.”  translation . . . “i don’t want to touch his hair.  the first haircut is a special time . . . even if it is only for the mom, darnit, and i want it to be a memory . . . a good memory . . . for me!! so i’m going to say that we should do it ourselves, but we both (should) know that i don’t mean it!”  of course, being the guy that tom is, he didn’t read my mind and thought i was cool with what was about to happen.

so after dinner we headed up to the bathroom.  i was thinking positively and suggested that we only trim the sides to get rid of the “earmuffs” and tom agreed . . . or so i thought!  he grabbed the “trimmers” (which actually are only used on trimming a beard or sideburns!) and started shaving gus’s fuzzy little head.  at the beginning, it was going pretty well.  tom was using a guard so he wouldn’t shave too much off . . . gus seemed ok with what was happening . . . i was busy taking pictures . . .  lily was bouncing in and out of the bathroom chatting away . . .

and then it happened . . .

i turned my head to answer a question for lily and when i turned back there was now an almost bald spot right on gus’s forehead hairline!!  no joke,  it was completely surrounded by longer hair and looked like crap.  that’s when things turned ugly . . .  i’m now crying at how bad he looks . . . gus starts crying because he’s becoming impatient at the experience . . .  tom is getting frustrated because gus isn’t sitting still (he is, after all, still a baby!) . . . and then the frickin trimmers break!!!  so there we all sat . . .  baby, crying in the bathtub . . . mama, crying and refusing to look at the baby (or at her husband!) . . . and dad,  saying that it doesn’t look that bad and that we’ll fix the trimmers and finish it later.

hell to the no!  i already knew in my heart that this had the potential of being a total disaster . . . and i was right.  our son now had a haircut that resembled a character from last of the mohicans . . . mostly shaved to the scalp with long sections all over his head.  it looked A W F U L !

i begrudgingly grabbed a clump of hair from the bottom of the bathtub and jammed it in an envelope to save.  it was, after all, a memory. :S  i immediately made a beeline for my phone, called our friend/hairdresser/babysitter, christina, and made an appointment for the next morning.  even she was shocked at how bad it really was!  anyway, she saved the day by trimming the rest of it and making him look presentable.

though his looks have drastically changed to me, i know that it is just hair and it will grow back.  seriously, i’ve had hair the color of the rainbow and a shaved head.  i even wore fishnet hose with combat boots and a biker jacket to my freshman homecoming!!  i know that how you look outside doesn’t necessarily reflect who you are inside.*  however, i must admit, for the first time i completely understood how my mom must have felt the day i came home with a shaved head (at age 13!!).  i mean, you look at your kid and you think to yourself, “i made that!  how this kid looks . . . behaves . . . etc . . .  is a direct reflection on me!”  besides all of this, i’m about 99% sure that this is my last baby and the only little boy i’ll ever have.  i wanted the first haircut to be special. (again, for only my memory!)

anyway, all of this to say that we all learned a valuable lesson from this experience.  #1 . . .   unless you are married to paul mitchell or john frieda don’t let your husband near your kids hair with anything other than a comb.  #2 . . . if you break rule #1 . . . at the very least use good equipment and for the tools intended use.  and finally, #3 . . . girls, say what you mean.  if you have an idea of how you want something to go, speak up and say it.  don’t expect anyone (especially a guy) to read your mind!

* yes, i understand that gus is a baby and that he didn’t choose to do this with his hair, unlike i did.  😛

out of the mouths of babes . . .

after purchasing lily a policeman’s costume at the dollar store, she proceeded to run around the house arresting and shooting bad people.  soon she approached me and we had this exchange . . .

 

mama: lily, come here i need to tell you something.

lily: mom,  my name isn’t lily, it’s officer borny.

mama: ok, officer borny, come here i need to tell you something.

lily: wait, mom.  this is “horny” (pointing to an imaginary person).  he’s a bad guy.  he bangs people!

mama: (crying with laughter!)  let’s go introduce him to your dad!!

don’t mess with officer borny!

daddy’s are magic!

ok, i’m just going to put this out there . . . my husband is a hottie (actually, he’s an absolute DILF, and lucky me, i get to!!  . . . go ahead and barf!).  sure, he’s easy on the eyes, but that’s not what makes me adore this man.  he is hilariously funny!  he is crazy smart.  he has a huge amount of talent and creativity.  the way that he can be crazy and make my daughter and son laugh til they’re peeing in their pull-ups makes me wish that i was just half as much fun as him.

lately, he has started a new nightly tradition with lily.  in her room she has a dry erase/chalkboard that was given to her by her grandparents last christmas.  for the past several weeks now tom has been drawing a picture each night of whatever lily’s little heart desires.  this can range anywhere from a favorite disney character to a refrigerator!  how cool is that?  seriously, i’ve always been jealous of gals that hooked up with musical guys who can sit for hours and play guitars while they sing for their kiddos.  he may not have a musical bone in his body (save for a killer aaron neville impersonation!) but this man can draw anything that her mind can imagine, and to me that is equally as cool.

here are just a few of his latest creations (some with lily’s “help”)

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last night at bedtime, after the picture had been drawn, i had just finished praying with lily and giving her about 10 “disney” hugs and kisses when i witnessed something truly special as i walked out the door.  tom kissed her and said goodnight and then she sat up in bed and started counting.  when she got to number three, she blew across her hand (like blowing a kiss) toward her chandelier and the lights magically went dim and turned out.  the look on her face at what had just occurred made me want to cry like a baby.  to anyone else it was just a clever way to turn out the lights, but to our little girl it was magic . . . a magic that only her daddy could provide.

happy st. pashriss day! from, cotto, the eprelaun

today, while chatting with my bestie, we were talking about her little boy and his hunt for four leaf “clubs”.  i suggested that she go and find some gold coins (and not the kind that glenn beck is always hocking… rather the chocolate kind!) and hide them in the yard for he and his sister to find.  then i thought about it . . . how could i suggest something so fun for her kids to do and not do it for my own?  so i was soon off to find my own treasure for sweet lil.  well i hit the dollar tree and walmart and couldn’t find exactly what i was looking for, so i eventually had to settle on some palmer’s peanut butter cups wrapped in gold foil.  good enough!

after picking lily up from school i told tom to call her upstairs so that i could get busy hiding them.  a few minutes later i ran up the stairs frantically asking if a little man in a green outfit had come through the room.  lily immediately started looking everywhere and ran from room to room to find him.  she finally ran to the landing on our staircase and found a single gold “coin”.  she started squealing about candy and how she wanted to find more . . . so we followed her downstairs and started the hunt for the treasure.  after a few minutes she had found them all . . .  except for one that i know the dogs ate (*foil and all!) because they were both licking their chops!!   lily had a blast and i had a new st. patrick’s day tradition!!

tonight at bedtime, she was still talking about “cotto, the eprelaun”,  (apparently, that is his name!) and how she couldn’t wait for next “st. pashriss day” so she could wait for cotto to show up and see him for herself.  i can’t wait for that either!!

“cotto, the eprelaun” by tom**

 

*  i did call the vet and they said the dogs would be find.  guess we’ll have to wait to find more “treasure” in the yard!

**  stay tuned for another post about a new special tradition that tom has started!

why i’m done with glee

when Glee was first introduced as a teaser episode in may of ’09 i was super excited.  it was witty, the performers were incredibly talented, and overall i thought it was going to be a great show that i would enjoy. . . and not just for me, but for all ages (a la high school musical… barf, i know).

i anxiously awaited the first full season and couldn’t wait to see how everything went down.  being a chorus and band dork in high school it was nice to see a show that finally showcased how really fun the arts can be, instead of just another one that glamorized sports and the “cool” people.  so i watched the first season and loved it!  the characters were pretty likable, even the villainous “sue” was a favorite.  the music was fantastic and heck, they even featured a deaf school signing choir!  (you know i’m all about that!)  all that to say, i really enjoyed most every episode.

then came season two.  the show had been a huge success in it’s first season, and rightfully so.  however, like other shows that have a great start, things can start to quickly sour . . . and in my opinion the show really started to stink.

by the third episode in when one of the main characters was praying to a grilled cheese sandwich with a burn mark that looked like Jesus (which the writers so cleverly called “Grilled Cheesus”), this should have been my first clue that i probably wasn’t going to like what was coming down the pike.  even though i was offended by this i admittedly didn’t let it stop me from continuing to watch each week.

week after week as i watched each new episode i found my enjoyment starting to fade.  the music was always great and sue’s zingers still made me laugh, but it was the content that was starting to get to me, yet i still was able to stomach it so i kept on watching.

a few weeks ago there was a new episode titled “Blame It On The Alcohol”.  basically, it was about underage drinking and in my opinion, absolutely glorified how cool it can be.  sure, there was a little mention about how you should drink responsibly, but that message was hard to find mixed in between wild partying and drunkeness from both students and teachers.  aly semigran, a writer for mtv, summed it up best saying, “While Ryan Murphy (the creator of the show) always combines humor with serious life lessons, it seems there were none to be found here. Besides some embarrassing moments, nobody in the episode faced any real consequences. The episode simply took the approach of ‘We can’t stop them from drinking, but we can make them aware, which is a very reasonable way to look at it. That is, if there’s some awareness in the first place.” so as disgusted as i was watching this episode it was not yet the straw that broke the camel’s back.

last weeks episode was titled “Sexy”.  it started off with a viewer’s warning that this show was intended for mature audiences and was sexual in nature.  gee, you think with a title like that?  anyway, i’m sure that the warning did little if nothing at all to deter kids from watching, or even better yet, their parents from preventing it to be seen. in fact, according to my research it had the highest viewership of last tuesday night with 11.96 million american viewers.  (and you know these weren’t all old people!!)

the first song right out of the gate was sung by gwyneth paltrow (who was a guest star) titled “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)”.  i was shocked.  now hear me when i say . . . i’m no fuddy duddy.  i’m not afraid of sexuality . . . my own or anyone else’s.  i think sex is great, and i’m not ashamed to admit it.  i’m even the girl who sang the Divinyl’s most popular song at karaoke bar when i was eight freakin months pregnant!!  (and if you don’t know the song i’m talking about you’ll just have to google that one for yourself!)  all this to say that i’m not a frigid prude!!  however, i do believe in having morals and i do believe that kids shouldn’t be lead to thinking that sex is something to take lightly.

i know that a major part of the story line for the first season was one of the character’s being pregnant and getting kicked out of her house.  i felt that this was a great topic as it absolutely affects kids today (and we can add underage drinking and bullying to that list as well).  i even have no objection to these topics being brought to light  in such a way that is not as threatening as an after school t.v. special!  however, it was the absolute disregard for who the target audience is that was the final nail in the coffin for me.  the creators of the show might say that it’s geared towards an older audience (approx age 16 and up) but i’m not buying it.  like with high school musical, the tween generation is absolutely latching on to this show and frankly, it’s being marketed to them!!  toys . . .  like microphones and board games, stickers, folders that have the character’s faces on them, etc.  are just some of the merchandising that is out there for kids (and let’s be real here, parents) to buy.  it is sucking in kids left and right and i seriously worry about the message that episodes like this send.

anyway, these are just my thoughts and musings about the show and explaining (to anyone who cares to read) why i feel like it’s not the kind of show i need to be watching anymore.  i don’t expect to really change anyone’s opinion, and i’m not trying to dog anyone who still enjoys the show.  however, i do openly challenge anyone who feels uncomfortable when they watch things like this and think to themselves, “maybe i shouldn’t be watching this” . . . why are you still watching?

i know that i wish i had changed the channel way back in october.

milestones

i was just looking on a friend’s blog about his daughter learning to ride her bike without training wheels and it started me thinking about milestones.  it’s interesting how when you have a baby, you anxiously await each new milestone they achieve.  today, new parents follow the What To Expect The First Year book like it’s the Bible for babies . . . where as for my parents’ generation it was Dr. Spock!  recently, gus has learned to push himself from his belly to a sitting position.  so, like a good mom i quickly ran to my book to see if he was on schedule or (gasp) had he mastered this skill early?  sigh . . . according to the book by age 8 mos (he’s now 10 mos) he probably would be able to do this.  waaah waaah . . . two mos behind.

anyway, for the most part i try to ignore these types of milestones and comparing my kid to every other baby his age.  instead of getting down on myself for what he isn’t doing and what other kids already are,  i choose to focus on how special he is.  like how even though he’s been sick for over a month now . . . fevers, multiple ear infections, seven trips to the doctor, nebulizer treatments, three days worth of antibiotics via shots in the leg, two ent visits . . .  that little guy is still smiling and laughing . . . even in his sleep! most other parents have to deal with whining crying babies, but not this mama!  (and don’t you know that i thank God daily for that . . . seriously.)

all in all,  he’ll get there eventually.  God’s timing will be perfect and gus will be as he is meant to be.  since i know this is my last baby i’m really not minding this extended baby stage.  i love carrying him around. besides, his 25 lbs of jolliness and love are giving me some freakin awesome biceps to rival michelle obama’s!

lily recently hit a milestone that probably isn’t covered in any baby books, but instead only in a mama’s heart. the other morning she came into my room begging me to follow her into her room for something she just had to show me.  i’m so glad i got my lazy butt out of bed, for what awaited me started my day off in absolute delight!  here she had drawn on her easel her first family picture.  of course, being the sappy dork i am, i started crying and ran to get the camera.  (what the heck is it with me and feeling the need to document every darn thing?)  she willingly sat with her “masterpiece”.  i love Love LOVE this girl!!  i’ll save you the trouble of guessing who’s who.  the picture is labeled according to what she told me!

“my family” by lily

(mama, daddy, polly, gus, lily, a baby carriage, and franklin . . . we’re  hoping she doesn’t know something that we don’t!)