Great Accomplishments Today!

Chapter I
Getting Up and Out

It was 102* today. Too hot to leave the air conditioned comfort of our home. But I cleaned yesterday and the day before, I sure don't want to be stuck doing that again! Besides, we had a million things to do today, so I barely dressed the kids and we set out on our quest to accomplish something.

Today was moving day. Not my moving day, Katie's. Katie and her new hubby have been living in an empty three bedroom home on the Navy base in Charleston while all their stuff sits in a garage at her in-laws house. Finally, the moving truck came! They'll have their stuff on Friday next week, supposedly. I told Katie's in-laws that I'd stop by and "help" (not sure what I could do to help besides get in the way) plus I had one more box to add to the load. I was supposed to be there between 8 - 8:30am. Yeah.

Well, I got up at 8am after another night of not enough sleep. The baby recently decided that she'd like to play for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. This eating and going right back to sleep stuff was just too boring. 3am party in the playroom is much more fun! And all she has to do is win the 2am wrestling match, cuz mommy gives up at 3am.

When I got up, I noticed my husband was gone. Ok, Ok, I'll admit it: I didn't notice right away. It took me a bit, but I noticed fairly soon after I got up. It didn't take me too long. He started back to work today, and he left shortly before 8am, so I just missed him.

This means I can't sneak off without the little turdlettes. Waking up late and as the only grown-up in the house totally shoots down any "helping" that I was going to do this morning. Oh Well.

Of course, if I'm up so is Libby. Why else would I get out of bed? Then something very weird happened: Gracie woke up too. Wow, this is early for her! This is great! Maybe I can get her sleep schedule back to somewhat normal and get her to bed and asleep at a reasonable time tonight! There's HOPE!

So the three of us got up, had coffee and applejuice, some toast... then I washed my hair under their intense supervision. Really, I don't get a moment alone with these two. They watch my every move. Once Gracie told me I had all the shampoo bubbles out, they hopped in the tub with squeals of delight. They played, I scrubbed them, they threw soaking wet washcloth puppets at each other and I read three sentences in my book. I keep a book in their bathroom to read to myself while they are confined and happy in the tub. It's been a month and I might turn the first page soon.

Libby had hives all over her body. This time they are little spots but they were everywhere. Head, arms, torso (front and back), legs... even on her cute little butt-cheeks. I let the girls "air dry" for a bit to see if Libby's hives would go away before I bothered her with clothing and a diaper. After 20 minutes, she was clear again. Back to business...

They are fed, clean, and getting dressed! We might make it! We might be able to run some errands! It's only 10am!

No, there was a delay. Getting dressed didn't go as planned. Gracie somehow managed to sniff out her Christmas dress from the back of her closet on the side we don't use where it was stuffed away and hidden between two prom dresses. How? Why? It's so hot out! And she wants to wear this lined fake-velvet dress? Lordy. We negotiated. When was the last time you negotiated with a three year old? So here I am, sleep deprived, still in my jammies, towel on my head, cold coffee cup in my hand, explaining fashion seasons to the kid with big pleading eyes.

I won. I got them into matching cotton sundresses. :)

I gated them in their pink room, and ran down the hall in a frenzy to get dressed and pony my hair before they started squawking about being locked in. Which is to say, as soon as they notice the gate is up, I'm gonna hear it.

Now that we were ALL ready to go... it was 10:45. I grabbed some frozen water bottles and the diaper bag and my purse and we headed out into the heat. Seriously, ten degrees cooler would feel like heaven!

We're all strapped down and ready to back out of the driveway for a big long day of errands! Here we go!

The First Haircuts - Both of them

Two First Haircuts in Two Days.

First Haircut #1:
By Stylist Yazmine, age 5, behind the babysitter's back:

First Haircut #2:
By A trained professional at Sharkey's Kids Cuts in a Barbie jeep:



2008 is going down as the worst hair year ever! I'm still waiting for mine to grow out enough to even it out after my disaster cut. Gracie has a few chunks that need to grow out, but they blend in pretty well and the new do looks pretty cute! This should solve at least 3/4 of that pillow problem she has, and make mornings a little easier with the battle of the hairbrush.

Just Call me Pregzilla!

I am Pregzilla! Don't get on my bad side. My hormones are chanting, trying to get me to do bad things. "Throw it, throw it, throw it!" and "Punch her, punch her, punch her!" and worse... "kill, kill, kill!". Yes, I know, that is just wrong and asking for a prison sentence. How would my family survive if I went to prison for some R&R? They can't put new toilet paper on the roll. I better behave and stay home where I am needed. I'm the only one who knows where we keep the spaghettios.

I got the worst haircut on the face of the earth on Wednesday. When I left the salon, Frictastic Sams, my hair was wet and the stylist "scrunched"it to make it cute. Little did I realize she was hiding her bad work.

I know, it was my mistake to go to one of those quick and cheap places. Lexie calls them the fast food of hair salons. She's right.

So, my horrible haircut dried and the "scrunching" lost its effect after a few hours. It does take my hair a few hours to dry on its own because my hair is really really thick. Really thick! The more it dried the worse it got. It looked like this:

So, I screamed and ranted and raved and threw fits. That didn't help at all. Still looked horrible. So, I cried. Again, that had no effect.

My daughter used her flatiron on it to straighten it and take out the "Poof". Now it was worse! And I looked like this: (Not that there's anything wrong with that - typed with a Jerry Seinfeld voice)


My daughter said, "Oh, mom. I don't want to tell you this, but... it's bad. It's really bad." It was uneven, choppy, chunky, and just hacked up in the worst way. I told the stylist that I didn't want any layers above my jawline. Um.... there are chunks cut above the tops of my ears! So I cried around for another day, wondering how on earth I was ever going to go out in public again.

My husband was scared to pieces to say anything. So, he pretended not to notice. I got 6 inches cut off and was now sporting the Emo look. How can he not notice? So, I mopped my floor. Didn't help my hair at all! But, the floor looks nice.

Today I woke up wishing I was a man so I could shave my head and still be cool. Since I was still having serious pregzilla feelings about my hair, I decided to go back to Fricktastic Sams and just let them know how upset I am and that I was well.... upset! Not that that'll fix anything either, but at least they should know. Not that they'd care.

So I did. First time in my life I have ever gone back to a hair salon with a complaint. I took the stylist's card, my receipt and just to top it off, I took the products that I bought for my daughters back too. I'll spend my money elsewhere. So, I took Princess Gracie and off we went.

Pregzilla enters the salon. I went in and the lady said "Can I help you?" And I said, "No, not really" So I told her that I was in the other day and got the worst haircut I've ever had in my life. I'm upset and I want to bring back the products that I bought and never opened because I'm way too mad at them to use their products too. She says "Just a minute". Another stylist comes over. I re-explain. Pregzilla hormones begin chanting. The stylist, er, she-devil who did my hair wasn't there. I begin to cry. Again! Geez. I am sick to death of crying my eyes out uncontrollably!

The stylists agree, it's bad. Very bad. One of them calls the manager and says please come in. The manager shows up, she was at home enjoying her morning off. Me, Pregzilla, ruins her day too. I'm on a roll. She says "oh, this is bad." The manager talks me back into the salon chair promising to smooth out the layers and even it up. She says it won't be fixed, but it'll be even and not as choppy. Ok. So she does her magic while I sit there really tense and nervous. I keep telling her DONT make it worse!

I sat in the chair and got the bib wrapped around me. With the stylists behind me, I could see their expressions when they got a really good look at my hair. They had only seen it from behind the counter. Now that they were getting an up close good look at it, their faces said it all. They looked at each other with that "Oh.My.Gawd!" look. I feel my hormones rage.

The manager had told one of the stylists to call the owner. He comes in. Fresh from his day off too. Pregzilla strikes another one down. He comes and says "Wow. Where did you get this cut? It really is as horrible as they told me it was". Pregzilla wants to kill.

HERE!!!

He wasn't pleased to hear that! The three stylists work on my hair for 2 hours. They blend and trim and style. It finally looks like I won't scare people if I go out in public. They really did a fantastic job of salvaging something out of that nightmare. They gave me products to use. They said I could come in for 5 free haircuts from the manager until my hair looked normal again. She said it'll take several months, but they'll keep it looking tame. I also got a full refund on the products I bought, my haircut and Princess Katie's haircut too. She was with me when I got the hack job.

So, they made up for what the one stylist did. And I'm wondering if the stylist who cut my hair into an Emo mess will still have a job by the end of the day. I saw the expressions on the faces of the stylists today and the owner. They were being kind when they said it was really bad. They said I wasn't over reacting.

I am Pregzilla. Hear me ROAR!!! And don't come near me with scissors!!!