By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on March 8, 2010, at 11:24 pm
No, I know what you’re thinking and I’m not talking about the blog – at least not yet. In this particular instance, I’m talking about me.
Last year I posted about deciding to finally just let my hair go gray because I was done with having to spend the time and money on something that’s well, let’s face it – is just surface vanity. And back then I meant what I said. Even at only age 39 (and I’ve been going gray since my 20’s), I was willing to just not have to deal with it anymore altogether.
But then two things changed.
First – I began to feel well, old. And I’m not ready to feel old – at least that old – yet. No matter how I look.
Second – is the fact that when your 7-year-old comes right out and tells you that she wants you to have brown hair, not gray hair, well it took me about 2 seconds to agree. I had older parents when I was growing up too – and early gray runs in my family. I know exactly how she feels – something I hadn’t considered before, and should have.
So that’s why about a week ago, I took myself to the hair salon at the mall. I’d been coloring my hair here at home previously, but it has gotten to the point where I just can’t manage it by myself anymore. I also wanted to talk to them about possibly trying to go a few shades lighter – so that the roots don’t show up quite so clearly when new growth comes in. Nothing too drastic – my natural hair color is very dark brown and I can’t quite see myself as a blonde. But something at least a little different.
Attempt #1 didn’t quite work out as expected – I got home that evening to find that the all-over color and highlights (the few shades lighter part) hadn’t completely covered the gray. In fact, there was quite a lot showing through – creating sort of an odd striped effect. Which was interesting, but not exactly what I was going for.
Apparently I not only have gray hairs – and many of them – but the darn things are rather stubborn too. Hmph.
I knew that I was going to be out of town this past weekend and that I wanted to get things fixed before then, so I spent my Friday afternoon back at the mall salon instead of getting everything else done that I needed to before picking up the girls and heading out.
But it was worth it. And my faith in the mall hair salon is firmly back in place after another complete all-over color and more highlights (all for free since it should’ve worked the first time) – but this time it took. And it looks so much better than what the original stylist was trying to do – I will be going back to this second one from now on. And thankfully here on out we’ll only be needing to cover the new growth, so it shouldn’t be as difficult (or expensive) as this initial color job.
Here’s a comparison of the original ‘before’ and the final ‘after’. I didn’t take any pictures of the ‘middle’ because I knew it wasn’t going to stay like that.
After the stylist was done, she took a few minutes to dry my hair and also used a flat iron to smooth out the natural waves that drive me crazy because they don’t curl enough to be ‘curly’ but keep me from being able to just wear my hair down. I don’t usually blow my hair dry – I haven’t owned a blow dryer in over a decade and would never even have thought to try a flat iron. That’s how so ‘not with it’ I am when it comes to style and fashion. Yes, I’ll admit that. But I’m now a convert – I bought myself a flat iron today. I don’t know if I’ll use it every day – my 5 minutes and out the door ‘style’ generally works on most days. But it’ll be fun to play around and see what looks good.
Since I couldn’t convince the stylist to come home with me to do my hair for me every morning… Hey, it was worth a try – I can’t believe how silky and smooth my hair was on Friday. I hated to have to wash it! But even so – the color looks wonderful and I actually feel good about myself for the first time in quite a while. Now I just need to find the motivation to lose 50 pounds of ‘baby weight’ and I might actually look on the outside the way I still feel on the inside.
One thing at a time though. It is Easter season, after all.
By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on March 5, 2010, at 3:18 am
It’s Friday again! My favorite day of the week.
Here’s my question for this week:
What color is your house? Or apartment, or townhouse, or whatever kind of building you reside in?
When we moved here, this house was the most horrible shade of yellow, with dark brown brick and trim, but a white garage door. A few years ago we managed to afford to have the siding painted, so it’s now a nice tan color, with dark brown trim – and a dark brown garage door, that I painted myself. I describe the colors as pretty much the same as a Three Musketeers candy bar.
By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on March 5, 2010, at 2:52 am
On February 22nd, my dad turned 81 years old. This past weekend we drove over to the Detroit area to visit him, for the first time in a year. I don’t know how we went that long without making the trip over to the other side of the state, but I’m determined not to let such a large period of time go by again without taking the girls to visit their Grandpa Al.
One difficulty when we do go is that there’s really no good place to actually ‘visit’ him, since he lives in a one-bedroom apartment in a senior apartment complex. Especially in the wintertime, when we can’t take advantage of the building’s grounds or pool. I’m always paying attention to how loud the girls are being – they’re not used to being in an apartment building where neighbors can hear through shared walls.
We usually spend most of the time in my dad’s friend P’s apartment, rather than his. She lives down the hall from him and is such a sweet lady. Her apartment – though beautifully decorated, is full of art, knick-knacks and lovely things that make me incredibly nervous to have three girls hanging around. Especially when said girls have usually just been cooped up in the van for a 2-hour drive. Both Dad and P are very good with the girls and understanding of their need to be loud and work off energy – but I think they’re also very glad to get their peace and quiet back after we’ve spent a few hours in rather close quarters together.
The main attraction of P’s apartment – at least for the girls, is the upright piano. They love to ‘play’ on it, which usually involves the three of them hitting random keys – loudly. Last year I’d taught Abby and Hannah a short tune – which surprisingly, they still remember. And Ron spent quite some time teaching Hannah to peck out The Star Spangled Banner. But it’s usually up to me to finally put an end to their musical experimentation – usually around the time my ears are about to explode. In such a small apartment, there’s just no place to get away from the piano – probably one reason why it’s so tempting.
Oh we can often find other ways to keep the girls amused too though. On this particular visit we spent a while in a sort of ‘hot potato’ type of game involving all of us tossing Hannah’s stuffed polar bear to each other around the circle of P’s living room. I tend to feel like I spend these visits in a constant state of saying, “No, don’t…!”, so from time to time I try to bite my tongue and remember that they’re just kids, after all – and bored ones at that. Not that they don’t love seeing my dad and P, but still…
On this trip, my brother was able to get away from his incredibly busy work schedule and meet us for a portion of the afternoon. He has such patience with the girls – for example, Becca spent much of the time trying to get him to play “UmiZoomi” with her. As a doting uncle, but non-parent, Donnie’s not usually up on the latest offerings from Nickelodeon so the girls all had to bring him up to speed on exactly what’s involved with pretending to be the character’s from Becca’s newest favorite show, Team UmiZoomi. Listening to their explanations made me really wonder exactly where the creators of these shows come up with their ideas – as cute as they are on-screen, something just plain gets lost in the translation, at least when described by a 4-year-old. But Donnie took it all in stride, as usual, and enjoyed reading to and dancing with Becca for a while too, while big sisters were busy ‘making music’.
Speaking of making ‘music’ – the girls’ other favorite part of visiting Grandpa Al and P is that she will usually let them play with her collection of small (breakable) bells for a little while:
I have to give the girls credit – they did an awesome job of behaving on this trip. Especially since it really didn’t include any kind of activities for them. After we left my dad’s apartment building, we drove across town to visit my mom and my Aunt Pat, who underwent heart bypass surgery back in December and has had an extremely rough recovery since. If nothing else, this trip highlighted for me just how little time we’re likely to have with my family – my parents, aunts and uncles are all in their 70’s and 80’s now.
It was all-in-all, a good trip, but a short one since we drove the 2 hours back home that same evening, after meeting my dad and P again for dinner. It makes for a long day with a total of 4+ hours in the car and lots of enforced ‘quiet time’ for the girls while the adults visit and talk. There were no other kids their ages around – only my uncle has a couple of grandkids who are still little, but we didn’t see any of them on this trip. And since my brother doesn’t have any kids, there are no cousins to play with.
But it was wonderful to be able to see my dad, to wish him a happy birthday and the girls colored many pictures for him and for P during our visit. I’m hoping we can make a trip back over there this summer, when the weather is nice and we can take the girls outside to run around and play.
By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on March 4, 2010, at 12:12 am
As I start to gear up for our next birthday party odyssey at the roller skating rink (seems to be our girls’ locale of choice for the moment), I can’t help but be reminded of the previous party we held there and the fact that I was in so much pain at the time as to be incapable of either truly hosting or even enjoying the experience. Thankfully there shouldn’t be a repeat experience next month, but it does remind me that I don’t think I’ve written much about what’s been happening with me since the surgery last December.
To recap, I’d been experiencing intermittent pain on my left side for over a year – that quite annoyingly seemed to vanish whenever I had the opportunity to talk to a doctor about it, but managed to re-appear at the most inopportune times like weekends, Tuesdays (when my doctor isn’t in the office) – and birthday parties, of course. Now that particular occurrence was the worst by far – involving such intense pain that I ended up at Urgent Care, vomiting and hardly able to walk. A couple of weeks later I had laparoscopic surgery to remove a cyst on my left ovary – which turned out to be so large (I was told softball-sized) that it was twisting the ovary and fallopian tube around, which is what caused the overwhelming pain. Unfortunately the ovary and tube couldn’t be saved.
Physically things have healed well – after about a week of recovery, I was back on my feet and running around with the girls as I usually do. The scars are minimal, and since I don’t plan on baring my midriff anytime soon (not that anyone would want me to, ugh) I barely even notice them. Life goes on. Except for two nagging little things that really aren’t important to anyone but me – but which I’m going to talk about anyway. I know I’m not the only one who’s dealt with ovarian cysts, so I’m hoping to hear what thoughts some of the others of you might have.
Not to get into a whole lot of detail here, but certain monthly stuff has continued without a hitch since the surgery. Which is a good thing, of course – it means that the remaining ovary has kicked in to make up for losing the other. No worries about early menopause – at least from what I’m told. And my fertility should remain intact as well – which is a relief. But the doctor was careful to let me know that it is possible for a similar thing to happen on the right side – since my body is apparently conducive to growing this type of cyst. Right now, I really don’t miss the ovary or tube at all – I mean it’s not like they’re body parts that you’re even really aware of. But I am much more cognizant of the fact that if something were to happen to the other ovary, then I’d be unable to ever get pregnant again.
Now before anyone gets all excited here – I don’t know that I ever will be pregnant again. But I don’t know that I won’t either – Ron and I haven’t ruled anything out where a fourth child is concerned. It’s something we’re not in any shape to consider right now – financially, time-wise or in terms of our sanity. But there’s always that well, maybe in another year or two thought. I just don’t know if I feel that our family is really complete at this point. But then again, maybe it is. Or maybe the decision will get taken out of our hands altogether. With my 40th birthday looming at the end of this year, it’s getting late in the game where having babies is concerned anyway. Maybe I should just be thankful to have the three kids that I’ve been blessed to be able to have conceived, carried and given birth to. Then again, I think maybe I simply like having all of my options in place – just in case.
Another separate issue that has been coming up is one that I was hoping would be remedied once the cyst was removed – but which unfortunately seems to have only gotten worse since then instead. Basically, for a good day or two right before my cycle every month, I have what is generally overwhelming fatigue. To the point where I literally cannot keep my eyes open on those days and end up falling asleep almost the minute that Ron walks in the door from work – if not before. I mean, getting a lot of rest is definitely a good thing, but I kind of like to be in charge of my sleep schedule… Falling asleep on the couch at the drop of a hat for hours at a time isn’t always very convenient when you have a family to take care of. I know I don’t always get as much sleep as I should – not nearly, but then again I shouldn’t require 15+ hours of sleep in a 24-hour period just to be able to simply function either. And with a 24 to 25 day cycle, I’m coming up against this every few weeks. This whole thing started around last summer – which is why I was hoping it might be related to the cyst and would go away after the cyst was removed. But no such luck.
I know – as far as medical issues go, I’m lucky that this has been a rather minor one. And I’m dealing with it. But I am curious if this is something that anyone else has struggled with? Is it just part of the whole getting older thing? Maybe I’m just rambling on here and losing all of you in the process. Sorry about that.
When it comes down to it all, I guess that I’m mainly just grateful. For the family that I have, for all of our general good health, and for having options, whether we choose to ever expand our family or not. I’m very grateful for not having any more pain either – and that I should be easily able to enjoy Abby’s birthday party next month. And who knows, maybe I’ll even get out there and skate right along with the kids this time.
By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on March 2, 2010, at 12:21 am
One reason that I love Becca’s preschool teacher is how creative she is and how well she is able to create opportunities at a preschool level, for the kids to understand concepts and to grow educationally. Over the years, we’ve had a child in her classes 4 times now (Hannah had her twice), so I love the consistency of knowing the projects that Becca’s going to be working on and being able to see how her work relates to that of her big sisters.
Four years ago, we were excited that Miss J’s ‘Olympics’ unit coincided almost perfectly with the actual events of the 2006 Winter Olympics. We’d participated the year before when Abby’s class had their ‘Olympics’ but it added a whole new dimension with an actual Games taking place. Miss J recreates the feel of the Olympics so well – including elements like the torch relay, the ‘team’ parading into the ‘stadium’ together, individual events similar to those held during the summer and winter Games, and even each participant having the opportunity to stand on the podium to receive a gold medal. In this Olympics – everyone wins gold, you see. Here are a couple of pictures from way back when Abby and Hannah each competed in their 3-year-old preschool Olympics:
There’s a lot of red, white, and blue – and chanting of “U-S-A”, which the preschoolers always love, of course. They all even wear their team shirts – created during an earlier class, specifically for their Olympic day. And they learn the names of some of the different countries who compete in the Games, along with their flags.
It’s extremely cute – and there are always several parents in attendance, both to help out and also to capture the moments with cameras and camcorders. This year I was armed with both. Please excuse the quality of most of the rest of these photos – the lighting in the gym isn’t very good and I went back and forth between settings on my camera trying to find the best option that would allow everyone to be seen without being TOO blurry.
This year was extra special again, of course, with another real Winter Olympics taking place at the same time. And for the first time that I’d seen, Miss J included a real outdoor element to the Games – with the introduction of the Snow Sledding and Snow Man Making events.
Becca chose not to participate in snow sledding – which surprised me, since she loves to sled down the hill in our backyard. However, when it came time to create her group’s snow man blob (what you get when the snow doesn’t pack very well) she pitched in eagerly and the group created quite a cute little blob guy thingy:
And she also had no problems with being pulled around the field on a sled with the other classmates in her group either. Thankfully the outdoor events were short-lived though, since it was cold and windy out that day and this Mama had forgotten to bring gloves.
Once everyone was inside, Team USA was ready for their parade, with tissue-and-foil-covered-toilet-paper-tube torches in hand.
Waiting for her turn in the torch relay – one side of the gym to the other:
Becca competed in both the two-man bobsled (for both Canada and Great Britain, no less)…
and the one-man bobsled race. She was excited to take second place in this one, but her glory was short-lived, as you can see in the short video below:
Apparently the belly-scoot wasn’t her strength as she came in almost last. However she seems to be a pro at scooting along with her feet while seated on the thing because she zoomed right along then.
She was quite content to watch during the bowling, but did take her turn when it came as well.
But I think that the noise and chaos of balloon hockey was a bit overwhelming. She just wanted one balloon that she could swat where she wanted it to go – instead of the free-for-all that ensued. Eventually she just gave up on the hockey stick altogether, as you can see here (she’s in the center of the screen after I zoomed in):
Her favorite event by far had to be the long bouncing track where the kids each had a few opportunities to jump – or run – down the length of it from one end to the other. That was definitely a very popular event at this Olympic Games.
Eventually every Olympics must come to an end though – and every athlete proudly stood atop the podium to claim his or her gold medal:
After which they celebrated with red, white and blue popsicles before heading back out into the blustery day for home.
My little Olympic star!
Oh yes, and next week’s study unit? Space. Involving a ‘real’ spaceship in the classroom that can hold up to 3 kids at a time. Final frontier, here we come…
By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on February 26, 2010, at 2:18 am
It’s Friday again! My favorite day of the week.
Here’s my question for this week:
What are you really worried about right now?
The biggest worry I have at the moment deals with whether or not Congress will renew the extensions of unemployment benefits before Sunday. With Ron’s hours so low right now his paychecks are about half of what they used to be. If we lose unemployment, I have no idea how we’ll survive. Since I was laid off in 2008 I’ve been looking for jobs and applying for whatever I can find – I spent a lot of time again today job hunting, but there’s so little out there even to apply for… At least now that Ron’s home in the evenings and on weekends (for now) there’s the possibility I could find an evening/weekend job so we wouldn’t need daycare. Sigh. Am praying and keeping my fingers crossed that the extensions will continue and give us at least another few months of breathing room, and that the right job will come along in time.
By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on February 25, 2010, at 1:02 am
You know those days, right? The ones where every little thing seems to set you off and even behaviors that you might laugh about on another day suddenly become that one last little straw that gets your teeth clenched and turns even more of your hair gray… Yeah that kind of day.
When I sit back and try to figure out exactly where or when my mood began to disintegrate, I realize it’s not any one particular thing but rather the sum total of many – caused in part, I’m sure, by wintertime blues, cabin fever, an excess of untamed energy and boredom. And on my part too, not just the girls’. But here are a few things that just plain went wrong and you can probably get an idea of why Mama ended up in such a grouchy mood well before the time little children headed off to bed.
Things didn’t start off too well when I woke up to discover Becca snuggled up against me in OUR bed. For the first time in weeks, but it was frustrating to think that we might be starting this whole musical bed thing up again.
Then, it was my monthly duty to volunteer in Hannah’s class while Becca was at preschool in the morning. Don’t get me wrong – I love being able to help out and to get to know the kids in her class and see her interact with them and her teacher. And it’s only once a month. But I really, really love every second of kid-free time that I get three mornings a week for a very short-feeling 2-1/2 hours where I can do whatever I feel like.
Then in the afternoon, I let Becca play the Wii for a little while while I dove into a book that I’ve been waiting weeks for the library to get and had been looking forward to since the previous day. I should know better than to start a book so early in the day – when I read I get totally drawn in and hate being interrupted. And life with a bored 4-year-old at home involves almost nothing except interruptions.
Such as exclamations of, “Look, Mommy – I won!” over and over – it certainly doesn’t help that she is actually quite good at many of the little Birthday Party Bash or Wii Sports games. And normally I would have picked up the other Wii remote and played right along with her. Which I finally did for a little while – scoring first an exciting 177 and then a depressing 123 in Wii bowling. And then being skunked in tennis. I think that’s when the headache began.
I think the headache probably encompasses reasons 5, 6 and 7 of why I ended up so grouchy. They usually don’t help, that’s for sure.
Hmm, reason number 8 involves a certain preschooler who lately seems to feel the need to repeat almost everything she says over and over again. And then again. And who appears to have either selective hearing or selective listening skills – in any case, forcing us to repeat much of what we tell her multiple times. Is that just in the job description of a 4-year-old or something? Becca seems to have mastered this particular skill much more easily than either of her sisters ever did.
One little girl who loves to pretend she’s a doggie is generally a cute thing. Two little girls who both like to pretend that they are doggies, but neither of whom is happy about the fact that the other is also a doggie at the same time is a situation that generally ends with Mama declaring the house a no-doggie zone before the woofing, whining, licking, crawling and arguing drives her crazy. I’m just saying.
I think Abby’s homework makes up a good few reasons for my grumpiness. I’m still not entirely sure what her actual assignment involved, other than a grid she’d handwritten on the back of a different sheet where she apparently needed to list examples from around the house of simple and complex machines – things like screws, wedges, levers, wheel-and-axels and such. Except that neither Ron nor I could actually remember the exact details of what all of those were. And Abby had left her science book at school.
This caused an argument between Ron and I, not only about the fact that she didn’t have all of the materials necessary to complete her homework at home, but also in discussing whether she should simply wait and do the assignment late as a natural consequence of forgetting her book or trying to do everything we could to help her get it done on time (even though we didn’t know for sure what she had to do). Just trying to explain what we each felt constituted a ‘wedge’ was a let’s just say ‘spirited’ discussion point.
This particular evening involved both of the girls’ Scout meetings – a situation which also contributed to my mood since it requires three round trips to school and back in a two-hour time period right at dinnertime. I love that the girls are in Scouts and that they enjoy participating so much. It’s just not always an easy evening, especially when my mood is poor to begin with. Then there’s the dealing with sugared-up kids after each of their meetings and trying to get everyone settled down and into bed even somewhat on time. Thankfully Ron’s home in the evenings nowadays to help. Although I’m not sure he’s so thankful for that all of the time, lol.
The homework compromise we ended up with, by the way – was to pick up Abby’s science book when I took her to Brownies since we were right at school anyway. And she finished her homework after she got home. I still am not sure we really got the lesson across about making sure to remember her stuff when she comes home every day. Then again, I don’t think she’s going to forget today any time soon either. Oh yes, and for future reference – a wedge? Like an axe or a plow. Two inclined planes attached opposite to each other. No, I am not smarter than a third grader. Sigh.
No matter how grouchy I get during the day though, there’s still nothing quite like tucking your children into bed at night with all of the requisite hugs, kisses, nose rubs and butterfly kisses involved. And it’s completely impossible to stay grumpy when little voices tell you how much they love you and that they hope Mama feels better tomorrow. Because I do too – so that my days with them, so limited really, can be spent soaking up every second of school-volunteering, Wii-playing, doggie snuggling, homework-helping, Scout-taking and whatever else parenthood brings my way.
This ‘list’ may not completely add up to 13, but check out other Thursday 13 posts this week anyway!
By Deb - Mom of 3 Girls on February 23, 2010, at 10:09 pm
Given that we’re right in the thick of Olympic ice skating coverage right now, it was only a matter of time before my children asked that looming question, “Mommy, can we try that?”. Now although I skated often as a child and also from time to time as I got older, the last time I was on skates was a couple of kids (and about 30 pounds) ago. Ron has never skated – and has no desire to. But living in Michigan, there’s plenty of opportunity during the wintertime and since the girls have done so well on roller skates this year, I decided that we’d give it a try.
We are fortunate to have a community ice rink downtown that’s extremely affordable and which has free skate rental. Not knowing how well the girls would do for their first time out on the ice, I opted to leave Becca home for some fun Daddy time – after all I only have 2 arms to hold beginning skaters up, and this past Sunday headed out with Abby and Hannah downtown.
We didn’t know for sure if the rink would be open – the weather was very nice (for February) and well above freezing. But when we arrived, there were lots of people skating away and it didn’t take long for us to join them.
It took a few minutes for each of us to get acclimated – me to being back out on ice skates, and the girls to trying them for the first time ever. They initially hung onto the side rail and I went back and forth a few times – but within only minutes each of them ventured out into the open ice on her own.
And they did amazingly well! Not that they never fell – oh no, they kept track in fact. Abby fell a total of 14 times and Hannah fell 12. But they didn’t mind falling at all – just got themselves right back up and kept on going.
Abby stayed with the main group of skaters, around the outer edge of the circular rink, while Hannah skated much smaller laps around the inner portion. I found myself free to simply enjoy the experience of skating as well – but also had time to snap a few photos here and there. I’d opted to leave the better-quality but bulky camera at home and instead clipped my point-and-shoot to my coat and zipped it in and out of it’s handy padded case whenever I had a moment to stop.
However, can you guess what the girls’ favorite part of skating was? Here’s a hint…
They had an absolute blast watching the Zamboni out on the ice after we’d returned our skates. They couldn’t get over how smooth and “shiny” the ice was after the Zamboni passed by. And both of them began begging to go get our skates back on again. In the end, I said no – we’d have had to pay again, and it was getting close to dinnertime anyway. But I promised that we can go skating again soon. The rink is open even at night on the weekends – it would be a lot of fun to skate under the lights sometime, I think. And I also think that we’ll invite littlest sister to come along next time as well – between my free hands well able to help keep her balanced, plus the little ‘walker’ type things for little kids to push along, I think she’d do just fine.
Future Olympic champions? Who’s to say… But they’re my two Ice Princesses for sure.
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