Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Well, this holiday season is one we're not likely to forget.

This year we decided to stretch the holidays a bit and for the last few days before Christmas, we let the kids open one gift every day. December 23 was one such day. Kardynn picked out a gift from Annika.

She was delighted to unwrap a Hello Kitty makeup/toiletry kit. The girls immediately started to play with it but then they moved on to other things.  They were using post-its and making "beards" and taking turns pretending to be Santa.  We watched several performances of Santa interacting with little girls.  (In this case the "little girl" is bigger than Santa.)

They had also opened a marble run present so everyone took a turn making a structure.

Eventually we encouraged the kids to take showers.  But after a while, Dwight and I realized that it had been quiet for too long.  I went off to investigate and found two little girls locked in the kids' bathroom - never a good sign.

They had taken the three bottles of Hello Kitty nail polish and decided to "highlight" Kardynn's hair.  I only took one photo before Dwight suggested that I was giving the wrong message by taking photos.  So I have no pictures of the ensuing buzz cuts...which probably would have been tricky anyway since I became somewhat emotional watching their beautiful tresses falling to the floor.  But I'm getting ahead of myself, what you can't see here are the additional "highlights" on the sides, not to mention the additional mess of nail polish that was unveiled when we removed the bun.  It was definitely impressive.  That one blue streak, for example, went the entire length of her hair.

 

I spent quite a bit of time reading online about how to get nail polish out of hair and most of the suggestions were for nail polish remover (which I did NOT want to put on my baby's sensitive scalp).  Dwight tried to get it off with water but that didn't do much on the thick glob of nail polish.  We thought about just leaving it, and letting her have multi-colored hair, but that didn't seem like a good idea either.  So eventually we decided to go with the second most popular suggestion on the Internet - cut off the hair.  We had warned Annika that if Kardynn's hair ended up having to be cut off, we would cut off her hair as well.  Initially she was enthusiastic about the idea but when she saw my reaction, as it was happening, she started to get second thoughts.  I'll admit, it didn't really seem like *that* big of a deal until I saw the hair falling to the floor and then it seemed like the worst idea we'd ever had. 

But, hey, it's just hair.  It will grow back.  And on the bright side, I don't think we have to worry about these two putting nail polish in their hair ever again.  Let me tell you that seeing those two girls with their bald heads makes me incredibly grateful for two healthy - albeit mischievous - little girls.

The Odyssey

Here's a typical day in my life. I woke up at the usual time and got the kids up. We actually started off pretty well and Annika finished her breakfast a few minutes early so she offered to help me pack lunches. We were all in good moods and joking around with each other. I happened to glance at the clock and my stomach flip-flopped when I saw that the time was 7:17.  We're supposed to be walking by 7:17! They started stuffing things into their backpacks and we all threw on shoes and coats and ran for the car. When the garage door opened and I saw Dwight's car blocking my car, I should have realized that was a sign of the day I was about to have. We quick jumped out of my car and into his car and fortunately I did manage to get them to the bus before it left.

A few hours later we had a small playdate mishap. Kiersten's friend got a little homesick but we couldn't reach her mom (which was very understandable since her mom had been sick). I managed to cheer her up but when it came time for the bus, I immediately realized that wasn't going to work. Her friend typically drives to school and today was not going to be a good day for a change in routine. So we all jumped into the car to head for school.  The only hitch was that Kardynn's buddy was supposed to be headed to our house before we would get back from driving the other two girls to school. But that was nothing a quick phone call couldn't solve. I got a little mixed up about the new plan with Kardynn's buddy, which resulted in us being a little late driving to elementary school. Fortunately we made it before they closed the "pony express doors"...but it was close.

By this point we were in a rut and it's not surprise we were also a little on the late side getting to preschool. But we managed to make it in time for car line. I picked up my friend for lunch. Before we actually made it out to eat, we had a little adventure at her son's school but it seemed quite eventful after the crazy morning.

Oh...and did I mention that all morning I had also been exchanging phone calls and e-mails with friends about a) the possibility of a Van Halen concert this evening b) going to the gym tomorrow morning at 5:30 am and c) having a wrap-up party with my Odyssey of the Mind kids either at 3pm or 4 pm in the afternoon?!

After a very nice and relaxed lunch with my friend, I drove her back home and then ran to pick up some paint swatches at Home Depot and some cupcakes for the now-confirmed 4 pm OoTM party. I did feel quite lucky when I got back into the car just as big, fat raindrops were starting to fall.

I drove to the bus stop and picked up my kids.  We went home so that I could order pizza for the party and so that they could drop off their backpacks.  As we all piled back into the car to pick up Kardynn, Annika said, "Mom, shouldn't you take your umbrella? It's raining. What if we run out of gas?"  I assured her we would not run out of gas and we set off for preschool.

We got about 3 minutes from my house when the car suddenly started making crazy noises.  It sounded like we'd gotten something caught under the car. I immediately thought that we must have run over a branch or something although it was odd because I hadn't seen anything in the road. But I pulled over to check.  I was concerned when the noise didn't stop when the car did.  So I turned off the engine and immediately called my husband.

Then came another flurry of phone calls.  I called the preschool to let them know that I was going to have to find someone else to pick up the kids and that person would likely be late. I called the mom of our preschool buddy to see if she could pick up the kids. I called my neighbor to see if she could pick up the pizzas that were due to arrive at my house. I called all the OoTM parents to let them know that the party was now off. Dwight arrived and called a friend to get suggestions on where to take the car. I called the Honda Dealership. We called a tow truck company. I called Papa Johns to ask them if they could deliver the pizzas to my neighbor's house. And so on and so forth.  I think you get the idea. While we were waiting for the tow truck I went to pick up Kardynn and we got back to the car just in time to follow it to the Honda dealership.

I believe it's the the drive belt that was starting to fall apart but I'll know more tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me!  Oh, and I also thought it was interesting that not a soul stopped to ask if everything was okay. I was crawling around on all fours in the rain and car after car just cruised on pass.  At one point cars started lining up for a bus but no one so much as rolled down a window. Personally I would definitely ask someone if everything was okay but I've been told many times that I don't quite fit in here so I guess those people might have been on to something.

I wish I could say this was unusual but you know what, two days ago I was posting about getting glurch out of my carpet so I think this is just how it's going to be for a while. *sigh* And now I'm off to send an e-mail to Oskar's teacher to explain how Oskar's homework ended up in the back of a minivan which is now sitting in a parking lot at the Honda dealership.

Check out the pretty rainbow in the background.  I really hoped that was a good omen, at that point.

Truth in Advertising

Last week we got a special treat. At the last minute, it suddenly worked out that my Mom was going to be in town to attend a workshop. My mom lives in Cairo...yes...the one in Egypt...so this was a pretty big deal. We hadn't seen her since last September, right before she moved to Egypt. She didn't actually stay at our house while she attended the workshop but she took a couple of days off work so that we could visit and hang out. It was a lot of fun. And we did a lot of stuff that my little family doesn't typically do...like eating out. We ate out A LOT!

One of the places we hit on our grand-old-tour of all the local restaurants was IHOP. This was an impromptu brunch after my son had had to fast for an ultrasound. So since the girls had already eaten breakfast, I thought that a bowl of fruit would suffice.

Here's the bowl of fruit as pictured on the menu:



I vaguely recalled a previous waiter mentioning something about it being a small bowl of fruit so I did ask the waiter for clarification about the fruit bowl...but I now realize I asked the wrong question. However I did find out that the kids bowl costs $2.99 and the regular bowl is like $5.49. Can I digress for a minute to point on that those prices are BOTH highway robbery!! How much do you think that fruit really costs them?! But before I wander too far down that tangent, let me show you the bowl of fruit that was delivered.



Are you kidding me?!  That's five pieces of fruit. Admittedly five large - choking-hazardly-large - pieces of fruit but come on, that does NOT look like the same bowl of fruit. I'm not usually one to make a stink about things but this was too much. I pointed out to the waiter that those bowls of fruit look nothing alike. He didn't have much to say so I asked if I could speak to the manager. (But I promise you that I was very polite about it. Truthfully this is probably the first time I've asked for the manager in my entire life.) The manager came over and I pointed out that the bowl of fruit looked nothing like the one in the picture and he said, "The picture is for dramatic purposes."   

Uh...then shouldn't you disclose on the menu that the bowl of fruit pictured is nothing like the bowl of fruit you will receive?

That response riled up some of the members of my party and they were ready to throw down right then and there.  But I tried to maintain the friendly atmosphere by steering it back to what I really wanted anyway.  "Could we possibly upgrade to the regular sized bowl?"

Am I overreacting, people?! You do agree that that bowl of fruit looks very different than the bowl of fruit in the menu, right?!

So anyway they brought me another little bowl of fruit and to IHOP's credit, they didn't charge me another $2.99 for the additional five pieces of fruit in the new bowl.

Having said that, I figured I'd share this with the rest of you possibly-IHOP-visiting-parents, lest you get sucked into the Jr. Fresh Fruit Dish trap.

Laundry

If you've been following my blog, you might know that life's been a little crazy for me/us lately. We've had so many medical appointments in the last little stretch! So I got behind on a few things, including laundry. Today I'm finally tackling Mount Laundry.  (This is in addition to dropping off my car for repairs, switching the car seats to a rental, and taking a two-hour jaunt to sign some tax-related paperwork - all with four kids in tow, of course).

Anyway, as I was saying, you know you have a lot of laundry when you are able to sort it as follows:

whites
beige/tans
grays
browns
blacks
reds
pinks
yellow/oranges
light blues
greens
dark blues

(Unfortunately several most of those baskets contain more than one load, plus I already had a load in the washer, another in the dryer and two baskets ready to fold.  *sigh*)

Angry Former Classmate

Last week I got an unhappy e-mail from someone who attended CUC with me. The back story is that at some point he sent me a Friend Request on Facebook. When I saw who our mutual friends were, I assumed that he was someone who knew Dwight and I accepted. Dwight's not on FB so quite a few classmates of his have sent me friend requests and I'm totally fine with that.

I chatted with this guy once or twice, but I actually don't frequently chat with people on FB (because the app sucks!). I just like to write on walls and look at pictures...and play a little Scrabble. A few months later this guy sends me an IM and says, "How do I know you? We never write on each other's walls. I think I should remove you." So I explain that I'm assuming he knows Dwight but that I'm fine with him removing me. He says he doesn't know Dwight, we proceed to chat for a bit and then later that evening, I remove him as a friend - because obviously he seems fine with that.
A few more months go by and then I get this message from him on FB. Actually, before I post that message, I need to give you a little more background.
My junior year in college...which was...ahem...thirteen years ago, a co-worker (and friend) from the Communications Department and I agreed to be co-editors of the yearbook. I should never have agreed to it. In addition to taking a full load (maybe even overtime), I was also working 20 hours a week and I had a very busy social life. (Which pretty much means that I was spending copious amounts of time with my boyfriend, Seth. That name will come up again.) So, yeah, I was a bit of a slacker on the yearbook front. Plus we didn't really have very much help - I think the yearbook staff was pretty much just the two of us. At some point we started asking people to give us pictures - we put ads in the school papers and made announcements - but we didn't get tons of photos donated. Anyone who went to our school will probably not be shocked by that because...how to say this nicely?...our school lacked for spirit.

At the end of the year, we scrambled to get this yearbook together. My co-editor got stuck with a lot of the layout work and I scrounged together my personal photographs to fill the empty pages. We did the best we could but overall, not the most gratifying experience.
I think that gives you all the background you need to properly comprehend this e-mail.

I remember you now.....i was just looking at the old CUC yearbook....remember? the one you used as your own personal platform for you and your brother and friends to make it look like you were more popular than you actually were? hahahaha i remember now.....i always wondered how i remembered your name.....every other page has a picture of you or part of your clan or family......i actually was there as long as you were and never even was in one photo....i guess there wasnt enough room.....you really should have been suspended for that.....it was funny though......it made you look like a total snob though.....if you only heard the things people said about you after looking at that.....it really was pathetic....there were at least 10 more pictures of you and seth and your friends than anyone else in the whole book......you really owe a lot of people a sincere apology for that by the way LOL.....you should be ashamed of yourself for abusing the editor responsibilities.....im not mad.....just now remembered after looking at the book how absolutely pathetic you really are.

I asked a couple of friends if anyone remembered the guy who sent this to me and none of them did. To which I gave this smart alec retort, "Well, maybe we would remember him if he had been in the yearbook."

But kidding aside, I do wish that I'd been a better yearbook editor.