The Love-Fest Continues and a Brain Dump

Sibling love is alive and well in our house…though I think it is a little bit one-sided! 

Before viewing, I should note two things: (1) Please ignore the sing-song voice I’m using to talk to the kids!, and (2) Please also ignore the gross observation made by my husband in the background.  I hope you’ll be so distracted by the cuteness of our kids that you won’t hear it!

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Here’s some odds and ends that have been running through my mind which don’t really deserve a blog post of their very own, which I’m pouring out here in a “brain dump.” 

Before Grayson was born, I foolishly fell into the trap of thinking,

“What will I do with all my free time while he’s sleeping?”

Okay, take a minute to get a good laugh at that statement.  Why on Earth I thought this, I have no clue – it’s not like this is my first child or anything, so I know that free time for the mom of a newborn is severely limited.  However, this boy eats A LOT (he has gained 4 POUNDS in the 7 weeks he has been alive!), and I have quite a bit of time to flip through the channels while I’m nursing him and catch up on programs we DVR at night (when we have absolutely no time to sit down and watch TV). 

Last night’s “Modern Family” was freaking hysterical!  Everything from Cam taking over direction of the junior high musical to the interesting wrap that Phil has done to Claire’s van – priceless. 

There is a LOT of HGTV on in our house – it is the default channel in our household!  One show I love is Selling New York.  The homes are incredible, the realtors are interesting, and I never cease to be amazed at the price per square footage in NYC!

Ohhh….please tell me you have been watching “The Killing” on AMC.  One word, FANTASTIC.  I’m slow to catch on the AMC bandwagon, never having watched Mad Men or Breaking Bad, but I’m so glad I picked this one up.  Well-written, thrilling, just loving it. 

Wow – the folks on “Extreme Couponing” on TLC are, well……EXTREME.  These folks are teetering on the brink of needing to go on “Hoarders”, with stockpiles of thousands of grocery items stored in their homes.  It’s the thrill of the chase for these people – there was the guy who bought 1000 (yes, one thousand) boxes of cereal for $100.  Or the couple who bought 50+ bottles of mustard on sale, when the husband doesn’t even EAT mustard.  I’m not sure of whether I should be in awe of these people who can save a staggering amount (seriously, paying $10 for $400 worth of product), or completely disturbed by their obsessiveness….either way, I’m intrigued. 

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Finally, a co-worker sent me an email that I needed to share.  America’s favorite funny lady, Tina Fey, has the wittiest observations on pregnancy and parenthood, definitely keeping it real.  She is expecting a second child and looks absolutely fabulous. 

The following ran on NPR and is Tina’s “Mother’s Prayer” for her daughter – enjoy!

“First, Lord: No tattoos.  May neither the Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches. 

May she be beautiful but not damaged, for it’s the damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the beauty.

When the crystal meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half, and stick with beer. 

Lead her away from acting, but not all the way to finance – something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes and not have to wear high heels.  What would that be, Lord?  Architecture, midwifery, golf course design?  I’m asking you because if I knew, I’d be doing it, dammit. 

May she play the drums to the fiery rhythm of her own heart with the sinewy strength of her own arms, so she need not lie with drummers. 

Oh Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers and the online marketing campaign for “Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.”

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a bitch in front of Hollister, give me strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, for I will not have that nonsense.

I will not have it.

Bonding

I vow that I will post about things OTHER than my kids VERY soon, but please indulge me once more as I post a few pictures from a supremely sweet moment I caught a couple of weekends ago.  Alexandra wanted to partake in Grayson’s tummy time on his floor mat – which, incidentally, she seems more interested in than he does!

Sigh – aren’t they just about the cutest things ever?  I am biased, of course. 

Adventures in Hairstyling

Ryan and I often wondered what our babies would look like while they were in utero, but if there was one thing we were certain of, we knew they would have extremely thick hair as both of us have LOTS of it ourselves (Ryan’s stick straight, mine wavy).  And were we right – our daughter Alexandra has beautiful, thick, curly hair, and Grayson seems to have quite a bit already as an infant. 

See what I mean?!  The child’s hair has grown SO much in the past several months.  I noticed while she was in the tub the other night that, when it is wet, her hair goes all the way down her back and is getting dangerously close to Crystal Gayle territory, which means my girl needs a trim!  

Side note – please tell me ya’ll know who Crystal Gayle is?

Country singer who was fairly big in the seventies and eighties…younger sister of Loretta Lynn…and perhaps most famous for her floor-skimming hair, undoubtedly full of split ends.

Here’s hoping I didn’t lose you on that tangent!

Anyway, as I was saying …

While Alexandra’s curls are beautiful, the downside is that her hair is prone to become tangled – A LOT.  Just looking at it causes it to get tangled, and don’t even get me started about how terribly tangled it is after she has eaten something sticky and multiple strands of hair get caught in the stickiness!  Combing it out is no treat for her mommy (payback, I suppose, for the grief I’m sure my sister and I gave my mom as she combed out our own thick wavy hair).  I find it easiest to arm myself with a huge bottle of detangler and comb, then sit her down in front of a Sesame Street video on the computer, where her attention is diverted from what I’m doing. 

Most mornings I simply pull back her hair with a hair bow, as seen in the picture above.  Some mornings she will sit still long enough for me to do “ponies”, but those days are few and far between.  On occasion, she comes home from pre-school and her hair is styled completely differently.  In her last class, one of her teachers could craft the most beautiful French braids – boy, do I miss her!  Not sure why Alexandra would sit still for her hair to be braided, maybe because the other little girls were doing it, too?  (Oh boy, peer pressure hits already!). 

However, sometimes the results of her teachers’ hairstyling efforts are a little suspect, like one day last week.  Ryan came in with Alexandra and said, “Just wait till you see her hair.”  Alexandra ran up to see me with a huge smile on her face and what appeared to be two adorable ponytails with a perfect part right down the middle. 

I was confused, and asked Ryan why he would question this as her hair looked adorable, remarking that I couldn’t believe her teacher got such a straight and even part.  That is when Ryan turned her around and I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. 

Yep, that’s a THIRD ponytail in the back of the head – or what Ryan and I have affectionately begun calling the “MULLET PONYTAIL.”  To make it even more interesting, the hair bow I had put in her hair that morning was strategically placed right on top of that third mullet ponytail (Ryan removed it before I could photograph it, unfortunately). 

Isn’t that a hoot?  I’m not sure WHY the teacher didn’t just part Alexandra’s hair into two ponies instead of three, especially when she was able to part Alexandra’s hair on the top so easily. 

All I could hope was that none of the mommies I knew saw Ryan that afternoon when he picked up Alexandra from pre-school, as I’m sure they were calling into question my hairstyling skills!!!