Hair 101 and Other Necessities

Hair 101 and other necessities is not a Daddy's First Love


Now this whole “Mommy” thing; I love it.

However, sometimes with Jeff and the “Daddy” thing, I wonder if the jury is still out on that.

Jeff is unsure of ability to be a good Daddy to a little girl.The whole baseball, football, video game, talking about girls thing with Kyle; he’s got that. No sweat.

The young princess of the house, however, has her Father totally baffled and frightened.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s got the diaper thing down to a science. Bath time, no prob. He’s even getting better at picking out outfits that ACTUALLY match, which isn’t bad considering she’ll be 2.

There is just one area he’ll totally admits scares the crap out of him.

Hair-dos. Mostly what he does is a hair–don’t but lately I’ve begun threatening him.

See my husband thinks little girls with long hair are adorable. Casey’s is finally getting fun. It’s finally getting long on top and in the back. When you pull it off her face the shorter pieces have gotten long enough that they don't just stand straight up. However, with long hair comes the responsibility to take care of it.

I keep trying to explain that to my BALD husband. He just has selective hearing or whatever. "Time? Dime? Wine? What did you say? LALALALALA I can't hear you.”

Lately when I pick Casey up from the sitter her hair is just kind of sitting in her eyes. She was bald headed for so long and then all of a sudden it was there. She hasn’t had a haircut yet. I keep saying it’s time and Jeff keeps wincing as if I’m discussing removing one of his family jewels. It’s just a haircut, right? Not to Jeff.

Since I have the luxury of leaving for work at 5am, Jeff takes Casey to daycare every morning. Can you imagine how many times a week he actually does her hair?

If you guessed 5 out of 5 please ship me any hallucinogen drugs you’re ingesting. Send them COD even because I need to be on that stuff too.

If you guessed 3 out of 5, you ‘re a "glass is half-full" kind of person, aren’t you?

If you guessed ZERO out of 5 well then you’ve met my husband.

Tuesday night was the final straw for me. I walked into our sitter and she a wad of gum stuck to the side of her hair. Not a HUGE wad you see and it was easily picked, pulled and peanut butter slid out of her hair. However, I threatened one last time.

“Either you attend Mommy’s Hair 101 tonight or she goes for a haircut this weekend.”

The look of “You Think You GOT me on that don’t you WOMAN, I’ll tell you something..ok never mind” on his face said it all.

“O-K. When?”

“Right after her tubby.” **Casey from across the living room** “TUBBY? SHOWER? WATER?” As she runs towards us trying to yank her clothes off.





20 minutes later she’s bathed, dressed in jammies and sitting on our bed.

Now for the last week or so I’ve been putting her hair in 2 mini half-pigtails.

As I begin to say “Now honey…”

He breaks in “If you think I can do that early hot school girl Brittney Spears or Princess Leia stuff….no dice my friend, she’ll have no hair left cuz I’ll end up pulling it out and then where will we BE, when our daughter is bald because you forced me to do her hair. HMMM?"

"Jeff, you must CHILL. This is not that hard. Can you count to 3?”

“Bite me.”

“Nice, nice manners. Do you want her to start saying that?”

“OK, Ok sorry.”

LOL we start laughing and then Casey starts this big phony laugh, which only made us laugh more.

I told him to get a chair. I sat her between my legs with her back to my chest and told him to stand behind me looking over me. I grabbed the comb and said “Brush once over the left ear -ONE, once from the center by her bangs- TWO and once from the right ear-THREE. Now you grab the rubber band and pull it around until it’s tight. Usually with this amount of hair 3 or 4 times is good. Then you tighten it a little and brush the bottom back hair a couple times and you’re done.”

Showing him the baby. “See? What do you think Casey?”

She reached her hand up to her head. “Pretty!”

Then I removed the rubber band and made him attempt to do it. A lot of squirming around and he never actually got it in her hair..and this is what her hair looked like.

Then I said “Now when you get comfortable with that, I’ll teach the piggies.”

He said…”Wait…is this a six week course or what? Two piggies seems way more like Hair VO5 or Hair 505 or whatever and ya know what…3 years from now; one day I’ll be finishing up her hair to drive her to daycare and she’s gonna look in the mirror and say Mommy does it better anyway, so what’s the difference?”

“The difference is you should know how to at least ATTEMPT it. What if something happens to me?”

“Well then I’ll just have to remarry someone that knows how to do hair.”

My response…

“Fine. Your grade for today D+. You know what happens when you fail hair 101, right?”

He started laughing hysterically and pointing at his BALD head and said…

“Yeah, you end up like THIS!”

Anyone want to trade husbands for a few days?

Clearly he needs some time to PERFECT the cuteness that is the

pigtails on this child.

MOMMY ROCKS!

Spring Fever

Summer fever, moving fever. Whatever.

Looking ahead on the calendar, it's a fair assessment to say that about 4 months from now we will be moving.

Sometime in mid to late July. The only thing holding up the actual date is whether Kyle makes this baseball team and even once we know that, I have to wait for the baseball schedules to come out.

July 14th is a possibility.

July 27th is a better possibility.

See I'm assuming I'll still be at my job then. July 27th is my Flex Friday off, which means if I wanted to take Thurs & Mon, I'd have a nice long weekend to move and only use 2 days of vacation. If I'm not at my job..this will be a lot easier to plan when the time comes.

In preparation for this move, I've begun the typical purging of clothes none of us has worn in years, digging through the storage unit for things that seem to accumulate there and most recently closets and kitchen cabinets.

Do you think this would motivate me to keep going? Not really.

One would think the sense of accomplishment would be enough. Not for me. **Curse this instant gratification society we live in.**

For me, it's the thought of being able to UNPACK boxes in our NEW home.

For now, we're just renting the house from my Mom. In time, I'm certain we will be buying it from her. To us, this is our first HOUSE. It's not big, it's not new, it's not glamorous but to us it might as well be a castle. It's about 1400 sq feet. It has a huge yard and a pool. The only downfall is the SINGLE bathroom. We're going to have to do something about that eventually.

For me, it's the ideas that come to my head about decorating. When you've lived in off white or white ONLY apartments for over 10 years, the thought of COLOR excites you. Right now we're not planning on making many changes to the house as it is. We love the color of the living room. The bathroom and kitchen are good base colors; I need only find accents and accessories. We love the master bedroom. The 2nd bedroom that will be Casey's we were unsure of but have since found the perfect material to make her a comforter and give her room some life. The only room essentially that needs painting will be the 3rd bedroom in the basement for Kyle. He has decided on black, gray and red.

Now I have some rearranging and painting to do in Casey's room. The inside of her closet needs to be painted and different shelves hung. Her dresser drawers also need to be painted to brighten up the room and I need to find her an area rug but I'm looking forward to THAT work.

Packing, not so much.

So here are a few pictures of Casey's room:

Here is the inside of the closet that needs to get painted. I also need to move some of those shelves because we're going to put her play kitchen inside the closet where that desk is now.

Pardon the state of "half lived in" my sister has moved 90% of her stuff out and into the dorms.

Here is the view from the door to the left corner.

The closet is there on the left side just past the aqua light switch. This is her dresser. We're going to be painting the black drawer fronts white.

Again, pardon the x-mas tree. My sister moved a bunch of stuff to the dorms during break.

Also, the black blinds will come down and be replaced with curtains most likely.

My sister is 21 and black, white and hot pink work for her but black does not work for my 2 yr old.

This is currently the view from the door.

Not really sure what I'm going to do with that wall yet.

Maybe the overdone wooden letters spelling out her name.

Now this is one of my big excitements.

The GREEN in the living room.

This view is from the kitchen entrance staring back at the front door.

That green wall is the front wall of the house.

To the right of where that tile ends is my entire living room on that side of the house.

The carpet in the living room needed to be replaced and my Mom offered rather than go wall to wall carpeting to put tile in the foyer (HIGH TRAFFIC) area. I wasn't sure what she was going to pick out and since it's still her house I didn't really get the final vote. However, she found something that works so well and has since put most of it down.

4 months and counting.....

Hope for the best, prepare for anything

Ya know I've heard the phrase "they are new parents" and it just sounds to me like a gross misrepresentation.

I have Kyle who is 14; he was nearly 13 when I brought Casey into the world. Was I a NEW parent? I hardly felt like it. However, after dozens of conversations with my Mom (a Mother of four) and Jeff's Mom (a Mother of seven); I know better.

We're always NEW parents.

There are experiences I've had that can give me an inkling in to how to handle them with Casey. Like now we're weaning her off the bottle. She's 21 months and some people would say that's too old. Well my daughter was nearly a micro-preemie and her developmental delays along with severe acid reflux made feeding for a few months difficult. So taking her from something that took her so long to ENJOY has been difficult but it's a brand new experience to me.

Every situation is different because as my Mom said "Some kids are like night and day." Or as Jeff's Mom said "What worked with Greg didn't work with Teddy and what worked with Teddy SURE did NOT work for Jeff." Every situation is different because every KID is different.

Just because I've been doing this "Mom thing" for 14 years does not make me the authority on Kyle either because KIDS themselves can change. Every situation with my son is a new experience.

Take for instance his latest sports issue.

Kyle has played baseball since he was 6. This is his 9th baseball season. Out of those 9 years, kids in his area can play for the elite, "competitive" team for 7 of those, 2 of those as a "travel" team.

So far, Kyle has played for this elite team 6 of the 7 and 1 of the 2. He's shooting for 7 out of 7 and 2 for 2. Last year's tryouts started with 34 kids. After 3 tryout sessions they cut 14 kids. The remaining 20 kids had 4 more sessions when they were finally cut to 13 kids on the team. No one in my house (except the oblivious Casey) slept for weeks. Kyle was on edge, he was nervous, he was ready to play but afraid he wasn't one of the top kids and possibly "on the bubble". I remember very well the night of his last tryout. It was a Sunday evening and he came home looking a little green.

"Kyle, honey, you ok?"

"Coach said we'll hear Tuesday. I don't feel well."

"Oh Sweetie, it's ok. If you don't make this team then you can go and visit your Grandparents and camp up North, it'll be ok."

"No really Mom, I feel like I'm gonna throw up." He had the flu and was literally in bed for 2 days when the call came from the coach to tell us he'd made the team.

Tryouts for this year's team, HIS LAST YEAR, began Sunday night. Again I sent him off to the high school wishing him luck.

He came home with a very somber look on his face. "Bubba?"

"Well there were 20 kids but 16 of them are all pretty good. I heard one coach say they might take 14. So I guess my chances are ok but we'll see." I could tell by the look in his eyes that any leg-up he thought he had by playing last year wasn't going to matter. They have 16 kids that are pretty good. That's still a chance he could be one of the 2 that get cut. I could see the look of fear and wonder of what might happen for his summer if he doesn't get picked. Now I realize that his life is not going to be made or broke by whether or not he makes this team but THIS is what HE wants and as his parent, well it's my job to help him have it. Even he doesn't get it; it's my job to make it ok.

"Honey, I have to assume with 20 kids, they are just going to have a few sessions and make one cut, right?"

"I don't know. Coach just said with the exception of one kid we all tried out last year so we knew the drill and that our 2nd tryout would be Tuesday night at 5:30pm."

"Ok, well the good news then is maybe by this weekend you'll be done trying out and you'll know by Tues or so."

"I'm worried Mom."

"I know honey, I know."

"No really, Zack ----- showed up from St. John. He shouldn't be allowed to try out, they have a team there. Little League rules say if you don't have a team in your town you can play with a town that does but his town HAS a team. If he makes the team and I don't, I'm gonna be so mad cuz that's not fair."

I tried for 15 minutes to reassure him. I didn't try and reassure him that he'd make the team. I merely tried to reassure him that no matter what happened; it would be ok. No matter what happened he'd still play baseball this summer for his other team. No matter what; he was still a great ball player. No matter what; the kids he's played with would still be his friends, even if he wasn't on the team.

Nothing I said comforted him. What am I NEW? Of course I am.

This is something he's experienced before and certainly will not be the last time we're gonna be in this situation but damn; did I feel helpless.

I started to think of all the times you try and protect your kids.
The times you have no control over the outcomes for them.
The times you give them all the best tools and send them on their way.
The things we want them to learn but the heartbreak we wish they didn't have to face.
The things you don't want handed to them so they can learn for themselves.
The triumphs that feel so wonderful because they had to work SO hard for it.

Some people say hope for the best but prepare for the worst. There is no real preparation in parenting. You can stock pile baby items, you can read books and attend classes but nothing can prepare you for the growth and changes they will endure.

All you can do really is hope for the best.

Blog Party Contest Winners and Answers

WHEW! What a PART-Y! That was. Thanks to everyone that stopped on by.

Monday's contest was to ask Jeff the best question in the "how would a man vs. wo

man answer that question" contest. (The answers to that are posted at the bottom- Jeff thanks you all for some fun questions)

Monday's Winner is Jami for asking the question that (PER JEFF) made Jeff get in touch with his feminine side.

Tuesday's Contest was merely a "Lucky Number" comment winner. I pulled the numbers at noon the following day.

Tuesday's Winner is Lucky #9 - Alpha Dude

Wednesday's Contest was another "Lucky Number" comment winner.

Wednesday's Winner is Lucky #8- (My Lovely) M

Thursday's Contest was given to the most fun hilarious/odd/unique comment shared about themselves.

Thursday's Winner was hard....we're all fairly OCD aren't we? Honestly it came down to Heather and her not being naked in front of the dog and Kimberly and her inability to handle/wash and keep dirty dish cloths.

The winner was Kimberly and simply because the more people I told the more they said "What the #(*&@#(*@? Really?" and the more I laughed. That's a real live QUIRK right there people.

Friday I only posted videos of my gorgeous miracle. Originally I was going to pick a lucky number winner but not many replies. So what I did was list everyone that left comments during this week. Then I picked a random winner.

Friday's Winner was Bethany.

Now....the answers to Monday's "Ask Jeff on Mars vs. Venus".

Jami asks: (and the profile is not public hope you come back to claim your prize)

Ask Jeff what strength does he feel more women have than men. What feminine fortitude has he witnessed and appreciated

Jeff’s Response: What have I witnessed is a ton just by being married to you. The greatest example though; that would be my Mom. She buried a husband in her 20s, then raised 5 kids on her own til she met my Dad, marries him and has 2 MORE children and then puts up with 7 kids and my Dad for 37 years. If that’s not feminine fortitude I don’t know what is.

What STRENGTH do I think women have more than men? (As he sits quietly for about 3 minutes) I would have to say the capacity for true love, in its purest form at ANY cost. Whether it be as a partner or parent, women love with their whole hearts almost all the time. It’s quite amazing to witness actually. I think us men get a taste of it as Fathers but as partners, women are much more capable of unconditional love. Men are either unaware of how to experience it or we just have more insecurity and hang-ups that keep us from experiencing it. In my opinion anyway, people might disagree with me.

Bethany asks: Tell me your views on a woman as president. No particular woman just women in general

Jeff’s Response: Do I have to answer this? Cuz I really just want to say “no comment”. Ok, fine. Here’s what I think. I’m a believer in the best candidate for the job and that’s my “PC safe” answer. If that means a woman OVER a man, so be it. Would I ever vote for a woman? If I thought she was the better candidate, yes. Do I believe women might make good presidents? I think women lack the “killer” gene to make the tough decisions like bombing someone or war; decisions where people are going to have to die. I think when it’s time to make those decisions women would struggle with them because they are much more in touch with their emotions. However, in the “cleaning things up and getting organized” clearly MEN haven’t been doing a bang up job so maybe a woman is better suited for that part of the job. EVERY candidate man or woman is going to have strengths and weaknesses. Do I think a woman will be elected in say, the next 5 elections (so what’s that 18 years)? Probably not and mostly because I think people are too afraid of change. Personally though, no offense but if we tried something we were afraid of and it didn’t’ work…do you HONESTLY think a woman could screw up the country any more than the men already have?

CPA Mom Asks: Ask Jeff why men must spend so long in the bathroom, with reading material, when women use the bathroom just for the purpose intended and get the f*** out. Thank you.

Jeff’s Response: I have no idea. Mostly because we have one bathroom here and I don’t get that luxury of hanging out in the bathroom. My Dad did though. He would read whole chapters in their master bath. Why? Probably to get away from the 7 kids running wild through the house. Also, men are just full of shit. We are. Our dumpers are HUGE compared to a woman’s and honestly it just takes longer so why not kill the time while you’re in there. I don’t do it now but if we had 2 bathrooms, I probably would.

Kimberly asks: I would ask his opinion about "affirmative action" type hiring procedures that require companies to hire a certain percentage of women, etc

Jeff’s Response: This is a lot like the presidential question too. I think regardless of gender, the best candidate for a job should be the one to get it. I respect women and what they are capable of and do believe they should be able to pursue anything a man does. I think in theory it’s a great idea. However, ENFORCING it not a perfect solution to the problem.

So there you have it folks. A great week of a party. If all the WINNERS could please email me at amorrison73 at gmail dot com so I can receive your snail mail addys for prize distribution. If you would like to keep that info private and would like another winner chosen, please email me.