Lucy’s day at the salon

Lucy is still not sleeping, and I don’t really want to talk about it because I’ll probably cry if I do.

SO! Let’s talk about Lucy’s hair, shall we?

Lucy’s hair has gone through many stages. She was born with a full head of dark hair, which is kind of amazing considering how blonde she is now.

Lucy at 6 days old

But within the first few weeks of her life, all of it fell out. And then she was bald. For a long, long time. Oh, she was so bald.

Had to take a break from packing to take the (still drippy-nosed) baby for a walk.

But then she finally grew some hair. Very blonde hair. And then we entered the phase of Crazy Bed Head.

The bedhead on this child. I cannot even.

Can we please discuss the back of Lucy's head? What on earth am I supposed to do with that???

And even when the bedhead has been tamed, she has what I can only refer to as a Baby Mullet.

After school picture day, I told her to show me how she smiled for the cameraman.

It’s bad. When Lucy sees the bottle of No More Tangles or the comb, she starts saying, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” before I even touch her.

So, I decided that was enough. I called my friend Kim, who does my hair and Catie’s. She told me to bring her in and she’d take care of it.

(I got no pictures of the hair cutting process, because I had Lucy on my lap during her haircut, and I was using my phone to show her YouTube videos to distract her. Yet another case of the second kid’s milestones passing by undocumented.)

And now, my Lucy-goose no longer has a knotted up baby mullet.

First big-girl haircut!

First big-girl haircut!

Gotta say, I kind of love it. It’s like an actual hairstyle instead of just an accidental pile of hair.

Now, if we can just work on that whole sleeping thing…

weekend recap

Saturday started with a trip to the kids’ hair salon.

Catie pre-haircut

It was far less traumatic than the last time we went (I still laugh every time I see those pictures of her screaming in the salon chair; 2 year-old Drama Queen). She was happy to sit in the chair this time.

getting set up for her big haircut

snip snip!
(That’s not a skeptical face, she had a mouth full of animal crackers. They give each kid a little Dixie cup full of them to snack on while they get their hair cut. Catie kept her cup hidden under her cape and would sneak the crackers out one at a time.)

She even laughed when the lady pulled out a blow dryer, which surprised me.

hair dryers are funny!
I honestly thought she’d freak at that point, but she handled the whole thing like a pro.

The kids get a “prize” after their haircut, which in Catie’s case turned out to be a purple rubber bouncy ball – the kind of thing you could get from a vending machine for a quarter. But she freaking loves that ball. You would’ve thought someone had given her the Hope Diamond, the way she reacted.

Since she was so good, afterward we went next door to Subway to get some lunch. It’s kind of a treat for us to eat out together.

post haircut
Showing off her haircut. Orange lips courtesy of the bag of Doritos she wolfed down.

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Saturday afternoon, it was my turn for a haircut. My last trip to a salon was back in March, and I never particularly loved the haircut that much. I’ve been feeling very “blah” lately, so I was excited to do something different.

Before:
me, pre-haircut

I thought about doing something drastic and whacking it off chin-length. In the end, I decided to go with taking about 3 inches off. Definitely a nice change, but without being too severe.

After:
me, post-haircut

I also had my eyebrows done, which always makes me feel better.

Now we just need to get Dave to get his hair cut too. He’s starting to look like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and not in a good way. Catie told him, “Daddy, your hair is growing up too big!”

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Saturday night, Dave and I took Catie to drop-in daycare and had a little Date Night. We went to see “Inception” – which, for the record, was really good. Although I can’t really describe the movie at all because it’s kind of a brain melter. We went to the 6:30 movie, and it’s 2.5 hours long, so it was 9:15 by the time we got back the daycare to pick Catie up. Not a big deal since they’re open really late on Saturday nights, but it totally messes with the whole bedtime routine. I think we finally got Catie to bed around 10:30, and that was even with skipping her bath and just getting straight into her PJ’s when we got home.

I have to say, that’s another reason I’m looking forward to my parents’ moving here. Someday we’ll be able to do Date Nights without worrying about rushing home, because we can just let Catie spend the night with her grandparents. That’ll be nice. I know my mom is already looking forward to it.

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Sunday (today), Catie and I decided to take advantage of the sunshine and go to the neighborhood swimming pool. Quite a difference from last week, this time I asked Catie if she wanted to go to the pool, and she said, “Yeah! I stick my feet in the water!”

Catie, before going to the pool

She still only went to the 2nd step, but whatever. I didn’t press her to do anything else – I offered to carry her further into the pool a couple of times, she said no, and I let it go. She’ll do more in her own time.

The rest of the day has involved cleaning the house and conquering the mountain of laundry (3 loads washed & folded so far, 3 more to go). Not very exciting, just your basic real-life stuff.

Still, overall it’s been a really fun weekend. Hope you all had good weekends too.

like a damn deer in the headlights

I forgot to mention that next weekend (March 26th – 29th), Catie and I are taking a quick trip to New Orleans. It’s my mom’s hometown, a bunch of my family is going to be there, and most of them have never met Catie. The last time I went to New Orleans, I was 6 weeks pregnant with Catie. And even though we were there for my cousin’s wedding, which was lovely and beautiful, I was also completely ill with morning sickness most of the time, and I couldn’t eat oysters or drink a hurricane or anything, so it wasn’t as much fun as I wanted. But I love New Orleans, it’s one of my favorite cities. It feels like home to me, even though I’ve never actually lived there. (I grew up going there all the time to visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.)

So, next Friday, Catie & I will be hopping on a plane headed south. My mom is going to meet us there, and we’re sharing a hotel room, so it should be a lot of fun. And as much as I love my family and look forward to seeing them, I’m mostly excited about the food. New Orleans has some of the best food in the world.

Oh, and when I told Catie that we’re going to the city where Princess Tiana (from “The Princess & The Frog”) lives? She responded, “I need a princess costume.” Umm. This is the first time she’s expressed any interest whatsoever in dressing up like a princess. I kind of figured this phase was coming eventually, and I swore I wouldn’t fight it. Most girls go through a princess phase, and most of them outgrow it in due time.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

(Yes, we bought the t-shirt and the DVD yesterday, as soon as it was released. I figure that as far as Disney princesses go, Tiana is probably the most empowered of all of them, and besides, the music in the movie doesn’t make me want to bash my head into a wall.)

Anyway, Catie happens to be lucky that her Mimi (my mom) is an excellent seamstress, because she is currently whipping up a custom-made princess costume for her as I type.

As for me, I was thinking about the fact that we’ll probably be taking pictures while we’re there, and lately I’ve been looking a bit like the sad slacker mom who doesn’t make much of an effort anymore. I made an appointment to get my hair cut, and yesterday I went to get my eyebrows waxed. I decided to try out a new place, because it’s closer to our new house and I’m lazy, and… hmm. Ok, well, let’s just look at the photographic evidence.

This is what I looked like before the eyebrow wax.

Mommy & Catie

Now, I realize that my eyebrows are way too heavy and they’re a big ol’ mess. So I needed to get them tidied up. I know that. But I think my eyebrow waxer lady yesterday might’ve been just a little bit overzealous.

Post-eyebrow wax

I look a little bit startled, don’t I? I mean, I’m intentionally not doing anything with my face in this picture, and still… Yeah. (Aside: good GOD, I look tired. And you can totally see my lazy eye in this picture. Lovely.)

I don’t think I’m at the point of breaking out the eyebrow pencil yet. But it’s weird. My face feels sort of naked and air-conditioned all of a sudden.

Random stuff because I haven't blogged in a week

1. Working full-time is kicking my ass. Hence the lack of posting. It’s good, I like the job a lot, and the people I work with are all great. It’s just that transitions are hard. I’ll get into a groove with it one of these days.

2. I’m trying to decide if I’m going to blog about my job and explain what it is I’m doing now. I wouldn’t mention the company by name, and I have nothing bad to say about any of the people I work with, so it’s probably fine, I just tend to be a little paranoid about those types of things.

3. I’m still sick. I caught Catie’s last cold, and while she managed to recover completely in about three days, I’m going on two weeks and still feel like crud. It’s not cool. I mean, the excuse to take copious amounts of NyQuil is nice, but that’s really the only perk.

4. My ribs, which I hurt falling down the stairs nearly three weeks ago? Yeah, they still hurt. Combined with the cold, I’m kind of a big whiny mess.

5. It’s Thursday and I still haven’t watched Tuesday night’s LOST, because I’ve just been that busy. This is practically unheard of.

6. Dave needs a haircut because he’s starting to look like Hugh Jackman in Wolverine. I mean, not with the metal talons or psychotic gaze or anything. Just the ridiculous volume of hair. I’m hoping that by mentioning it on my blog, I’ll shame him into going to get a damn haircut already. (Hi, honey!)

7. New Catie tricks (which we can entirely attribute to daycare because lord knows I didn’t teach her this): she’s trying to wipe her own butt and she’s flushing the potty herself. I know this is like the most boring child development update ever (unless you’re my mom), but it’s a pretty big deal around here.

8. Here’s a picture of a cute happy toddler until I can figure out what else to write about that won’t bore y’all to tears.

playing on the stairs

Happy almost-weekend!

a day at the (kids') salon

Catie came home from daycare on Monday talking about how her little friend Kiersten got a haircut – which she pronounced like “ahh-cut,” making Dave & I giggle. She kept saying, “Catie needs a ahh-cut, too!” I was a little thrown off that she wanted a haircut, since normally I trim her bangs myself, and she’s never really been a fan of that. But ok, I guess this is part of her “I a big-girl now!” thing, so that’s fine.

I absolutely love her long hair, so I didn’t want to cut it short, but I have to admit, she was right about needing a haircut. I’ve noticed the tangles when I try to comb her hair out after washing it, so yes, she was definitely due for a trim.

Since she was so excited about the idea, I decided to make a big deal about it and go to the special kids’ hair salon, rather than just trimming it myself at home.

playing at the kids' hair salon

(And seriously, Snip-Its was fantastic. Yes, it’s a little pricey for a kids’ haircut, but the stores are set up really well with toys and cartoons and other distractions, and the people who work there have the patience of Job, I’m not kidding.)

playing at the kids' hair salon

It was all very exciting and fun while we were hanging out in the lobby. But when it was her turn for a haircut, Catie changed her mind. Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.

not really enjoying her first salon experience

not really enjoying her first salon experience

Is it horrible that I had a hard time not laughing during all of this? Probably.

As soon as her haircut was over, she was rewarded with her very first-ever lollipop (she chose the butterscotch flavor, which, eww, who likes that kind?), as well as a random prize that they give out to all of their customers. Catie’s prize happened to be a rubber purple dinosaur. They couldn’t have picked out a better prize for my child with her love of all things reptilian.

after the haircut, all is well again

Suddenly, all was well with the world again.

As for the lollipop, I told her to “lick, but don’t bite” it. So she just rubbed it on her tongue.

lollipop time

She did that the entire drive home. And she absolutely loved it.

So, yeah. We survived. And her hair looks pretty darn cute, I must admit.

after the haircut
Although I may trim it myself next time. I’m not sure that I’ll be up for the drama again for quite a while.