Merida No More

Look what I woke up to Saturday morning: my sweet, little girl watching a movie while writing out her favorite scripture to share with a school friend, who'd earlier shared with her a favorite.  (Lil'S was quick to join her after I got him out of his crib.)  I chatted with her for a moment and took the scissors she'd been working with to put them away since Lil'S was now up.  After I turned and started to leave the room, I spotted something on the floor.  A curl of hair.  I picked it up and turned around.  

"H?"  Another curl of hair.  "Did you cut your hair?"  

"Yes."  She answered.  

Me in shock: "This is the first time you've cut your hair."

"No, remember, when I hid behind that board?"

I couldn't remember that time,
but I figured she must've been pretty small.

  

Upon closer examination, I learned the extent of this additional activity H had been up to while S and I were still in bed.

zoned in front of the tv

Oh, dear.

Not even the Romans appreciated Mullets.  

Or, maybe I should say Nero did, but his biographer did not.  

I side with his biographer.

"Why did you cut your hair?"

"Because I wanted short hair like ___ and [S, her best friend at school]."

"Oh.  Well, next time talk to me about it first, okay?
It's not okay to cut your hair by yourself."

"[H], where did you put your hair?"

"In the garbage."

Well, I guess the difference between a three-year-old cutting her hair and a six-year-old cutting her hair is that a six-year-old cleans up after herself.  I was actually quite impressed there.  Mess Management is not my favorite aspect of Motherhood.  I think it was easier to forgive her for cutting her amazing hair without consulting me first simply because her beautiful hair wasn't strewn across the floor.  And, I guess being reminded that I'd enjoyed Ben & Jerry's with my hubby the night before helped soften the blow as well.  ;)

Goodbye lovely locks!

:(

Time for some serious hair-cutting.  But, as is typical in our family
anytime anything important is supposed to happen, we played first.

Then we had baths and lunch and put little brother to bed 

so he didn't get any ideas.  Next came zoning out H in front of the tv

so I could fix her hair.

With how much she cut from the front, I had to go short.

Really short.

Her response?

Tears.

"I look like a boy!"

"I hate my hair!"

Oh, dear. . . .  Well, that's what happens when you cut your hair by yourself!

After nap time we pulled out my laptop to show her women with short hair. I also showed her my cousins' daughter, A, who has short, red hair.  H then wanted to see Ms. J, her art teacher, who has short(er) hair, as well as Ms. M and Ms. L, her kindergarten teachers.  So, we went to the school website and pulled up their pictures too.

The trick worked!

Phew!
(She's being super silly in this vid.  It was an hour past her bedtime as I had to touch her hair up some more.)

I've had a hard time adjusting to this as well.  H received her red ringlets from my grandmother, and seeing them would remind me of her and a funny story she once told me.  One night she went to a high school dance (with my Grandpa?) and her hair was still a bit wet, so it curled up tight around her shoulders.  While she was dancing, kids would sneak up behind her and pull on her ringlets, stretching them clear down her back.  This didn't embarrass her a bit, and she laughed along with the rest of them at how fun her hair was to play with.  (The slinky wasn't invented yet. ;) )  

Happy Anniversary, Love!!!

http://idrawcards.com/2010/04/another-anniversary-card-attempt/

S and I are celebrating our 9th anniversary, which was Thursday.  There haven't been huge celebrations, as the house is a mess and we're trying to save money.  We may be buying ourselves a van next week.  Guess that's one way to celebrate nine years of marriage, eh?  :)  Thursday Seth stayed home from work to take our car in the shop, as the breaks were very much going.  (Grinding is a bad sound.)  When it turned out that they were full that day, he stopped by the store on the way and brought me home a dozen roses.  I think that's the first time he's bought me a dozen roses.  What a lovely treat!  (We're such penny pinchers!)  Friday he was given a lead on a van when he took the car back in.  The office guy at the shop lives in our neighborhood, and he drove S to the shop that owned the abandoned and fixed up van and then drove S home so that he didn't have to sit around, waiting for the car to be fixed.  Our front axles were completely shot as well.  We knew they were going, but we didn't know they were as bad as they were.  An employee showed them to S.  He was a little surprised.

http://ak.imgfarm.com/images/fwp/myfuncards/SpecialOccasions/lg/CuteDogAnniversary.jpg

Anyway, back to anniversary celebrations.  S went back to work for the afternoon--for the first time this week since he was out of town Sun-Tues, and then he surprised me in the evening by bringing home some Ben & Jerry's.  YUM.  We stayed up until after midnight (oops) watching the BBC version of Jane Austen's Persuasion, which neither of us have read or seen before.  It was a fun night.

http://idrawcards.com/2010/04/anniversary-card-2/

Happy Anniversary, Love!!!
:}{:
;)

DIY Ah-Ha!

Skim coating!!!  That's what we can do to salvage our bathroom walls!  Skim coating!!!

There really is hope for our bathroom!

Now to find a permanent solution for keeping grass and weeds from taking over my new gravel driveway.  I consider it my unproductive garden. . . . My mom had a chemical suggestion.  I think I'm about ready to take it on, much as I'd prefer a gentler method.

BYU-I Baby

ta-da!!!

Complete with the famously stationary Elder Bednar hair.

The Great Outdoors Is Good for Allergies - ScienceNOW

The Great Outdoors Is Good for Allergies - ScienceNOW

Too cool.  Backs up the same things talked about in Probiotic Revolution.  Time for the kids to go play in the dirt.  Thanks, S, for passing it on!

Life Will Change

Six-year-old H said something to me completely out of the blue that made me have to leave the room in order to not burst out laughing.  In fact, I would have laughed anyway if I hadn't have been rushing to find a paper and pencil in my mess of a house so that I could scribble it down before I forgot it, which, given my ADD manner, caused me to not totally catch or forget the exact words she used at the end.

"When you're 31, 

life will change 

because I'll be older then

 and will help out 

like I don't do now."

This school year has not been the year for "help[ing] out".  It's been a year we never want to repeat.  (Although considering that Lil'S at age 2 is taking a blessed three-hour name most days of the week, I have a feeling that we will.)  In fact, most days it's been like pulling teeth to get H to make it through homework, dinner, and her bedtime routine.  However, we've suddenly seemed to have had a reprieve from this, whether H's starting to need less sleep, or life has just returned to some kind of "normal" since N arrived and family has been visiting.  I've had glimmers of my beautiful H, the one that seemed to have disappeared ten months ago when she stopped napping regularly.  One of the beautiful parts of her showed up in how well she will apply good things she reads to her life.  She and I read a story in this month's Friend magazine about two girls who helped take over their mother's chores after her hand was severely cut.  By the time her hand healed, the girls had gained great skills and were perfectly content to continue helping out.  I was about to type that suddenly H was helping out!  However, I think she was really starting to help out more on her own, so this story just helped strengthen her efforts to do so.  Maybe part of this change has been my willingness lately to have her read to me, instead of me to her, and to let her stay up a bit late in order to have more than 2 minutes of reading time.  I've been leaving the room closer to 6:30 most nights and occasionally as late as 7.  As late as those times have been, she certainly has been tired afterward, but not as tired as she was previously.  I wonder if, were we to get her to bed at 6 again, would she be able to make it through her week without her Tuesday afternoon naps?  

(The most obvious change is that she hasn't been fighting her patch as much.  I think she wore it for about a week without complaint upon my asking her to put it on.  What a blessing that has been!)