Hairy Situations

So Olivia's hair has grown out a lot since we buzzed it back in the beginning of May to 1/4 of an inch.

And in the past two weeks or so, she's realized just how long it is (she was pulling off quite the Mia Farrow circa Rosemary's Baby look, she pulled it off quite well, too) and she's been pulling, pulling, pulling. She's got quite the thin spot right above her left eyebrow.

I'm trying so hard to let it go. This is her thing. She'll have to get old enough to want to stop doing it and at that point, I'll do everything I can to ger her the help she needs.

But right now, me telling her not to pull at her hair isn't going any of us any good.

I've had to pray hard about letting go of this need to stop her. I've had to ask for the peace that comes with accepting something I can't change.

She's not quite four years old. She wants long hair but I don't think she understands that when she's pulling it out, long hair can't happen.

I had a well-meaning friend ask me once if I'd considered medicating Olivia for anxiety in an effort to get her to stop pulling her hair.

I'll be honest. Medication never crossed my mind. I don't think Olivia's hair-pulling is anxiety related. I could be wrong, though. But even if it is caused by anxiety, is hair worth putting drugs into her body at four years old? I don't think so.

I don't care what other parents do to/for their own kids but I'd like mine to stay drug-free for as long as they can. Sure, we do the occasional antibiotic when they're sick. We did try the bed-wetting medicine but upon seeing that the maximum dosage didn't work for A, we stopped it.

It's just hair. It keeps growing back. I hope and pray that at some point, Olivia will stop pulling it out. But until then? She's lucky she has elfin features that look really good with very short hair.

Speaking of hair, my hair was recently orange. Well, just in the back. See...I tend to screw around with the color...well, a lot.

My aunt Lorry once told me that I use my hair for instant gratification. When I can't stand certain things that are happening in my life that I can't control, I tend to change my hair in an effort to control something. Too bad I don't use that need for control to control my caloric intake...

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I attempted to remove any and all artificial color from my hair. Over the summer, I'd gone back and forth changing from medium blond to darker blond and back again.

And I needed to get rid of all the color so I could do something else. I wasn't sure what else I wanted to do, but I wanted something.

And the color-remover worked, sort of. Except, it left an orange streak down the back of my head.

I wore my hair in a ponytail for two weeks, even after having my hair cut by a decent stylist.

Finally, Lorry came to the rescue again and brought me two packages of what she calls "Sea Treatments." I don't know what it really is, but when mixed with water, it turns into a gel and upon being applied to hair, it gets rid of build up and rusty color. And it worked! Behold, I was blond again, without any obnoxious orange streaks.

And that lasted a week.

This weekend, I colored my hair again. This time, I used a color that was supposed to be a 'Natural Medium Brown.' The model on the box looked amazing.

I hate it. It's dull and ashy and just plain yuck! And yet...I feel like I need to give my hair a break and just let it be for a few weeks, just because. Sort of like punishing myself for my own impatience. I don't know. Maybe it will grow on me. But I doubt it. It needs something...

Aunt Mommie

It's been exactly two weeks since we closed on our new house. The girls and I spent the nigth there for the first time exactly a week ago. Tom has spent two nights there, himself.

So with the new house comes a new routine.

I can no longer get out of my bed in the bedroom I shared with the girls at my mom's house at 6:20, shower, pack Alyssa's lunch, wake Alyssa at 6:45, get her dressed, feed her breakfast and head out the door at 7:30 to drop her off at the school that was a mere six minutes from my place of employment.

But I also no longer have to get up at 4:30 on Tuesday mornings, load up the car, wake up the girls at 5:15, bundle them into the car, drive an hour and twenty minutes, have 25 minutes to unload the car, feed Alyssa some lunch and head out for school/work.

Now it's much more consistent. I get up at 5:15, shower, packed A's lunch, get her up at 6:00 (because she wants to watch Martha on PBS) let her and Olivia run around for an hour, leave for my mom's at 7:00, so Alyssa can eat breakfast there because her Rice Krispies taste better than the ones at our house (true story!) and then, we leave at 7:25 so I can drive her to school, drop her off at the new school which is at 16 miles and 25 minutes away from my work.

It's actually a comfort to have the same routine every single day and not have to worry about getting enough sleep Monday night/Tuesday morning. Then I go to my mom's house in the evenings by 5:30, pick up the girls and we drive the three miles to our house.

This routine hasn't just made a difference for us, though. It's messed up Jaxon's world too.

My mom watches him twice a week for my brother. My dad goes to my brother's house and watches Jaxon the other three days. The two days that Jaxon stays with my mom, he spends the night the first day so Jason doesn't have to drive the 18 miles from his house to my mom's (my brother isn't exactly rolling in financial freedom.)

Jaxon's mother used to care for him whil Jason worked. She did this while she and Jason were a couple and after they'd broken up.

But...she's got a new boyfriend now, and he doesn't really like Jaxon. And he lives with his parents and now so does Jaxon's mother.

I'm trying really hard not to judge her. I don't know what is going on in her life.

But I do know that Jaxon is craving maternal love.

My mom and I do the best to slather him with it when he's in our care but it's not the same and we all know it.

Jaxon adores all things Livie.

He and Olivia can have the exact same food on the the exact same plates and he'll eat off hers rather than eat his own.

The same goes for drinks.

If she's got on sticker earrings, so does he. He wants to wear her underwear!

So...since I'm Livie's mommy, he's decided I'm just "Mommy." He only ever hears Olivia and Alyssa call me mommy. That combined with him hearing my mom and his dad call me Tommie has led him to think my name is Mommie.

And honestly, I'm okay with that. But...this little boy breaks my heart every single time I go to pick up the girls when he's there.

When I arrive, he's the first to greet me at the door with a huge grin and a shouted, "Mommy!!!"

He practically climbs up my leg to get me to hold him.

And when I tell the girls to get ready to go home, he wraps his arms around my neck and whispers, "Home?"

See...he's used to me and the girls being at my mom's when he's there. He's used to the four of us (my mom, me, A and O) being a unit.

And now that we leave, he wants to go to.

Just this week, I got there as he and his dad were getting ready to leave.

He didn't want to go with his dad. I was holding him (because he was doing the 'spider monkey' hold) and he kept turning my face to him and saying, "Home? Me home?"

Then he'd point to me and say, "Mine!"

I hugged him and told him I'd always be his Aunt Mommie. He just said, "Mommy!!"

I feel like he's being abandoned by a mother-figure all over again each time my brother leaves with him. I know it breaks Jason's heart that his son's mother isn't more a part of that boy's life.

I don't get it. He's so sweet, so lovable.

Again, I can't make any judgements. She's young (20) and...well, hasn't had the best role models in her life. But I'd hoped that would make her want to be different, not continue the cycle.

So I'll keep loving him, keep answering to Mommy whenever he calls and hope and pray that it's enough.

Frog People

As a child, I had a recurring dream from the time I was, oh, four until I was about nine years old. In this dream I was on an island with my cousin Chet (don't we all have a cousin "Chet"?) and we were running from the frog people who inhabited the island.

We managed to get to one end of the island where we could see our parents/siblings on a neighboring island waving at us to come over. But neither of us could swim and the frog people were closing in on us.

Then Chet turned into Tarzan and swung us over on a vine...

I had this dream once a week or so.

I figured out a few months into having the dream that if I fell asleep holding my mom's hand, I didn't have the dream that night. Or, if I slept on the side of the bed that was against the wall, the dream stayed away. But if I had to fall asleep without my mom's hand or on the outside of the bed, the dream came.

I know...I need therapy. Don't we all?

But a few nights ago, after moving Alyssa's mattress from the bottom bunk in the room where the girls' clothes hang in the closet onto the floor in a corner of my room, about two feet from my bed, Alyssa and I discovered that if we both reach out, we can hold hands for a bit at night as we wind down.

I do this even though my elbow starts to ache and my shoulder starts feeling wrenched because I remember the comfort of holdling my mom's hand, of knowing the frog people weren't going to invade my dreams for at least that one night.

This could explain why I'm so reluctant to force either of the girls to sleep alone. As a child, I didn't want to sleep alone either.

Yet I went off to college and slept in my own bed without needing to hold my roommate's hand all night long (probably much to Edie's relief.)

And as an adult, I long to have the bed all to myself. I long to have that space child-free.

But it will be. Sooner than I realize and so, while I bitch and moan about having someone sleeping on my arm, I keep letting it happen because it means so much more to them to be there, beside me, holding my hand, than it does to me to shove them out of the bed and even the room. A few more year and I'll be begging them to let me hug them. So I'm going to keep on holding them whenever they let me, for as long as they'll let me.

Venus Emails Mars

Olivia starts her new session of gymnastics tomorrow afternoon. It's a Mommy & Me class. It was the best/only class available for her skill levels.

Except...it's at 3:30-4:10.

I work 8:00-4:30.

If I were to try and go get her and take her to class, I'd have to leave work at 2:30 and drive twenty minutes to my mom's, grab O and race back to town in hopes of getting us back to the gym by 3:30.

Last weekend I suggested to Tom that he bring he to me on Thursday afternoon and then take her home while I work a half hour more after the class is over.

He looked me like I was insane. He reminded me that he's making several trips a week to and from the old house with 'stuff' and he couldn't possibly be expected to do such a thing.

I dropped the subject.

Then on Monday at work I emailed him:

"Concerning Olivia’s gymnastics…what I was thinking when I signed her up for that time (3:30 – 4:10) was that maybe, hopefully, please, please, please, you would be willing to plan your week around being up here at that time to bring her to me. I know it’s asking a lot, but this is her physical therapy and at the time it’s scheduled (and there is no other time that has a good class for Olivia) my mom will have JUST picked Alyssa up from school (even if A were riding the bus, my mom would need to be at her house to meet A as she was getting off the bus)

It’s only one day for four weeks and Olivia really needs it. I would ask this of you if I didn’t think it was important for her. Will you consider it? Please?"


Using email, I was able to take the emotion out of the request. I appealed to his knowledge that her PT is very important. Tom was the one who stayed home with her and met with the First Steps physical therapist each week for two years. He gets that it's important.

I was also able to get my thoughts out without having to see his distainful reaction. I didn't have to see him roll his eyes or look annoyed.

And his response?

"Since you asked so nicely, how can I refuse? Of course, I'll bring her to you on Thursdays."

I think that him having some time to think about his response before having to reply helped. I think that him having to actually see the words on the screen helped too. If he'd written something dismissive or obnoxious, he'd have had a few minutes to think about them before sending.

Oh yes, I'm about to start the first draft of my book about how communicating via email will save marriages all over the world.

Bussy-ness

I dropped Alyssa off for school this morning for her sixth morning at her new school.

This was the first morning with no tears.

Of course, there were no tears because I dropped her off.

And she went to the office with me and heard me tell the lady in the office that we're changing Alyssa's plan of travel for to and from school.

She'll be parent drop off and parent pick up.

I know...I said last week (at least, I said it on Facebook, probably not here though) that she was going to start riding the bus to and from my mom's house as of yesterday.

Last week was rough for Alyssa. She cried on Wednesday night (first day of school) for an hour before bed. She was tired. She was scared. She was terrified of the idea of the bus.

So I drove her every day last week. And there was only a half hour of tears on Thursday night. There were no tears on Friday because YAY, it was Friday!!

On Saturday evening, she started crying again. I muttered a frustrated, "You don't even have school tomorrow, why the heck are you crying?"

She mumbled something about the bus.

My mom, who happened to be visiting, asked Alyssa if she'd feel better if I took her to school and either my mom or Tom picked her up.

Alyssa perked right up. That was JUST what she wanted.

And yeah...we gave in.

But see, my reasoning is that this is all so new. The school, the house, the people, the routines, the bus...

She's never, ever ridden a bus to or from school and I feel like we should give her time to get used to everything else before throwing her on the bus and making her fend for herself.

I know, melodramatic much? But...it's how it's going to be. I timed it. I can drop her at school and still make it to work on time.

So we'll do it this way and re-evaluate the situation in a month or so.

As I keep reminding her, soon she won't be the new kid anymore. And once she's used to everything else, on the bus she goes. (Yeah, famous last words, right?)

Discontent

I once had a male friend tell me, "The more I get to know you, the better looking you get."

Which...wow. He said this so sincerely that I couldn't take offense at the time. I'm not sure if even now I'm offended. I like to think that my sparkling personality was just shining through and...well, it changed my perfectly noraml, average looks to something attractive.

Yeah, that's what he meant.

These days, though, I'm not even feeling average. I'm feeling decidedly below average. And it makes me mean and sad and frustrated. Because I'm not being good to myself. And I've written over and over about how I need to treat myself like I'd treat a friend or family member. I've talked about being kind to myself, being respectful.

Who knows when that will actually happen.

I actually miss Marc a lot. His honesty was refreshing and I'm thinking if we were close friends today, he'd say something like, "Dude, you're still the awesomely cool chick you've always been but even your love of all things sci-fi can't make me over look the size of your butt."

And hearing that might make me go for a jog or pass on those peppermint patties. Or something. Then again, it might make me cry.

My aunt Lorry told me the other day, "You have to stop looking in the mirror and saying, 'You look awful, you fat, gross hog.' You need to start saying, 'Hey, I've been through a lot and I look damn good for all that.'"

Yeah, I'm going to try that one.

At least Olivia loves my squishiness. She loves to crawl onto my lap, plump up my boobs and say, "I love my squishy mommy."

That right there almost makes it all better. Almost. But for now, I'm going to have a Coke and another peppermint patty. And start that diet tomorrow.

Floored

I've mentioned before (countless times, really) that my girls sleep with me. At my mom's, Olivia and I share a full-size bed and Alyssa sleeps on a twin bed in the same room. At our old house, Alyssa had actually moved into her own bed when she was six, but over the following year, she'd managed to put her self right back into the queen bed that Olivia and I share.

Poor Tom has been firmly nudged onto the couch.

As we've gotten settled into the new house, the girls and I have spent the last few nights at my mom's, as we would have had we not bought the new house. And, since this is the week Alyssa started her new school, she's moved from her mats on the floor in our room (the twin bed she was on was moved to another room as my mom anticipated getting her house back) and into the full-bed.

That puts a 57 pound seven year old, a 30 pound three year old and a more than 57 pound 39 year old in the a bed that is maybe big enough for two teenagers who are just discovering the joys of sleeping together.

It's not pleasant.

And when we go in there to go to sleep, Olivia insists upon laying side ways, with her head on my stomach and her feet in her sister's ribs.

It makes for a less-than-pleasant bedtime routine because of course, Alyssa is less than appreciative of her sister's feet jamming into her side. I don't blame her. I don't especially appreciate the head that is pressing on my bladder.

But in the end, we all finally fall asleep. Or, at least, they do.

Olivia gets turned so she's laying properly on the bed, curled up against her sister.

And I slip out of bed and crawl onto the mats on the floor, where I attempt to go to sleep, waking through the night to switch sides as my hip begins to ache from the hardness of the floor.

Most nights, I'm woken by Olivia crying at the door, attempting to open it in her frantic search for me.

I get back into bed with her and Alyssa, who has managed to turn diagonal in the bed so that her feet are now competing with mine for the same space. Olivia crams her thumb into her mouth and settled her head on my shoulder with my arm beneath her and I try to go back to sleep, hoping against hope that my lower back won't cramp in the night.

by morning, I'm ready to get up just so I can stop being touched.

Last night, though...

Last night, after the girls were asleep, before I took my place on the floor, I put a pillow against the side of Olivia that wasn't snuggled up to Alyssa.

And when I woke up this morning, I realized that I'd had a full night of sleep, with no interruptions, no one kicking me, no one wanting to lay on my arm, no one whispering, "Squishy boobies," as she plumped up on such squishy booby to use a pillow.

It was wonderful. It was the best night of sleep I've had in a year.

It goes to show how bad my sleep is the rest of the year if a night spent on the floor on a couple of mats ranks one of the best.

It also explains why one of the greatest parts about attending the March of Dimes ShareUnion each year, for me at least, is the fact that I get my own bed for two whole nights.