• Buddies,  Bug,  movies,  Newsbreaking Hair News

    6 Month Movie (and why I’m in the dog house)

    Phew! Where to start? I kinda got run over by my own social life these last few days. This is a good thing but it’s made keeping up the daily blogging nearly impossible and YET I have soooo much to blog about! Isn’t that how it always is?

    First off: the hair cut. Yay! I like it. My good friend/fairy godmother came in from out of town and went with me so I could actually get my hair cut without the baby yanking on my hair and interfering with things. It was great. When the hair dresser was done cutting, she even let me hold the baby for a little bit (because you know I was going through withdrawals after the first 20 minutes).

    I got my hair cut by a total stranger this time and she didn’t hack off all my hair and make me feel like a fuzz bomb. In fact, she was really really sweet and I think I’ll go back to her. This is big for me. I have a hard time making long term commitments to hair dressers for some reason. But I really like her. She’s only 21 and totally quiet and shy in spite of her extremely noticeable white jagged punk hair-do. At first I was bummed because my secret dream is to have a flamboyantly gay male hair stylist who will take me under his wing and make me “faaaaabulous”. But I don’t seem to have such luck. This girl was really quiet and listened intently to every word I said, even the rambling about being a mom and how I haven’t done anything with my hair other than wear it in a pony tails since the baby was born six months ago. She didn’t even flinch when she saw my crooked self inflicted bang job. She just smiled and said, “We’ve all done it.” I love her!

    It turns out her quiet nature was not at all uninventive or shy in creativity because when she was done I had the sweetest wavy bob that was just perfectly long enough to still be pulled into the silly pig-tail buns that I’m so fond of wearing. I know. I’m probably embarrassingly stuck in some dated hair-do from the late 90’s but I like it and I don’t care to be cutting edge any more.

    Getting my hair cut was really fun. But that was just the beginning. My friend and I (and her lovable step daughter) spent the rest of the day doing fun girly foo foo things like getting my ears pierced again so I can wear earrings again after not being able to since my holes healed up ten years ago. I feel so feminine now! I have a soft romantic hair cut, my ears are pierced AND I wore make up that day. (Cause, you don’t want to look like a frumpy soccer mom when you meet your hair stylist for the first time…and don’t even get me started on how hideous it is to stare at yourself in the mirror while your hair is slicked back and parted in the middle while they cut… at least a little eye liner made me feel a teensy bit better.)

    Because we’re ladies and “we do lunch”, we stopped into my favorite mall-side cafe (that reminds me of Paris) and had Croque Monsieurs (fancy ham and cheese) and yummy gelato that melted all over the table. Speaking of messes, I attempted to feed Baby Bug rice cereal and mashed up bananas from my lap while lunching ever-so-lady-like. It was a total disaster and I ended up with mush all over my clothes and gelato drips all over the sling and Baby Bug’s hat. Oh well. What can you do? Stay home all day and never do anything fun?

    Toby and I are currently having a running debate over whether or not my daily chaos is good for Baby Bug or not. I say, emphatically, yes. She needs to get used to my crazy life. The definition of intelligence is ability to adapt to your surroundings and I don’t want a baby that can’t roll with going to a restaurant or being around my friends and family. But Toby says she needs structure and not so many new faces and new places all at once. There’s a happy medium somewhere in there.

    After the cafe we lolled around my friend’s air conditioned motel room and then went to another delicious dinner at Macaroni Grill. I always gain about ten pounds when my friend comes to visit because she insists on taking me out to lunch and dinner and room service breakfast and all the sweets and deserts you could ever want in between. Now that she’s gone, it’s diet city for me.

    But back to my rambling record of the latest happenings….

    Things always get a little more complicated with me. This is why Toby and I are in a bit of an argument over whether or not Baby Bug might be over-stimulated. After spending the whole day tripping through the mall with my girlfriend and her step daughter and then a fancy dinner out that night (Baby Bug spending most of that time securely strapped onto me in the sling) we went home to sleep. The next morning I was going to meet up with my friend again and spend yet another day doing fun girly foo foo things. Except because of some miscommunication, I double booked my day with yet another friend. She and her three kids called me from the road to say they were on their way to meet me and go to the beach!

    What to do! I had invited them for the following Tuesday but you know how it goes. Tuesdays can get mixed up sometimes. This is all great because I love having friends around and my motto usually is “the more the merrier” but that isn’t exactly what Toby and I agreed upon the night before. But what could I do? Send them back home? Oh no! So I got on the phone and organized a meet up with both sets of friends and everything was hunky dory (sort of).

    I forgot to tell Toby they were coming. Toby woke up as one of the boys (who had blue hair) wandered noisily into Toby’s office to exclaim wildly about his wide screen computer monitor. Oh dear. Strangers in the danger zone. My friend’s kids are very well behaved but it was early in the morning for Toby and he was a bit of a grouch. Especially since the night before he had expressed that maybe I ought to slow it down a little so Baby Bug could have some time to rest with all these new faces coming at her making goo goo sounds.

    So lets just say I’m in the dog house for not checking with my husband before I fill up my social schedule and invite friends into our home that is also his place of work.

    Thankfully, Toby has really good manners and my friends are very nice and everything worked out in the end. Did I mention that yet a third set of friends dropped by for coffee in the afternoon? Ooops. I don’t know what my problem is. I think I’m overcompensating for not being popular in high school.

    And now my tale is done AND that means it’s time for the SIX MONTH MOVIE!!!!! Yay! It was tough picking which footage to include this time. She’s doing so many amazing new things. But I think the most memorable new trick she loves lately is singing. She sings up a storm these days… even in her sleep!

    Enjoy! (1.79 MB Quicktime)

    Here is a non-music version for those of you who don’t like getting songs stuck in your head.

  • Beach Bits,  Buddies,  Tis the Season

    A Pic-a-nic

    On Saturday we had a picnic on the beach with some friends. Picnics with friends are always a good idea. I’m mad at myself for not doing it more often. I guess when it comes to food preparation and guests I usually turn myself into a tizzy thinking there is no way possible I could pull such a thing off. But I can. And I can pull it off with pizazz as long as I get up early enough the morning of and make a quick trip to the grocery store for some gourmet goods. It’s amazing what a tub of pesto will do to an otherwise boring grilled chicken sandwich.

    We had a fabulous time. It’s so fun to let the babies play together and compare notes on their different developments. It’s just plain fun to meet other parents and realize that we really aren’t trapped in the twilight zone after all. If left to our own devices, I think Toby and I would just live in a cave and never go out. But we did and I’m glad.

    Next time though I vote for having a picnic in the park under the shade of a big leafy Alder tree because the beach was stinking hot!

    Big news tomorrow: Baby Bug turns 6 months! (Must make movie) And I get a hair cut! Woooo Hoooooo! I haven’t gotten my hair cut since last September.