Hair today, gone tomorrow

It's taken a while, but after days, weeks, MONTHS even, of my bitching, whining and moping - I've finally got a hair appointment.

It's coming off, ladies and gentlemen.

Every now and again I grow my hair out, probably just to remind myself how damned annoying it is.

But during pregnancy and the first month or so of mommyhood, long hair just sort of works.

1) The hair was thicker and more glorious than ever.
2) My skin and scalp were way less oily and icky than ever.

It was the meeting of two perfect moments.  Yes, for a while there, I had lots of glorious hair that could go days without being washed.  I was sexy, divine!

Those days... alas... are gone.

First of all, the lovely hormones that keep your hair from falling out are gone (or the hormones that make your hair fall out are back... or... well, hell, it's different) and then all the hair that should have fallen out, falls out.

It's like Margo when they took her out of Shangri-la.  (Alas there is no good image to go with that...)

I'm going bald.  In parts.  Okay, just in the front.  And it's only noticeable when I pull my hair back.

But I have to pull my hair back all the time or it gets in my eyes.  Balls.

It doesn't help that it tangles just by looking at it.  I pull more hair out just trying to brush it, let alone when I try to get it up into a pony tail.  Who knew that hair, nicely brushed, would knot THAT EASILY when you try to wrestle it into a band.  I have broken my brush TWICE.  And my hair is only just past my shoulders in length.

That's reason number 2.

Meanwhile my application to OPEC as a new member-state is going well.  My skin will solve the energy crisis, as soon as I figure out how to get it off my face and into my car...

Thankfully, since I am able to take long showers every day, I can keep my skin and hair clean and healthy and...

*howling with laughter* I'm sorry *choke* Seem to have lost my poker face somewhere...

My face rivals that of a teen on prom night and my scalp... my scalp has PIMPLES, y'all!  Running my fingers through my hair means... ugh, I'm not even going to go there.

Yes, I'll talk about poop and boobs and bodily functions, but there are some realms I will not enter.

I hate pimples.  And they are in my hair.  That's reason number three.

So the hair has to be cut off.  I can wash it faster that way, getting the soap right down to the scalp.  I will not need to even look at conditioner (which I can't use right now if I want my hair to even look slightly clean), and it'll dry faster without any help from me, because I don't have the time for a hair dryer.

But my child is going to lose one of her favorite toys.

I feel kinda guilty.

She uses my hair as a rope to swing from and as a chew toy.  She likes to shove a whole handful in her mouth and suck on it to calm herself.  And I'm going to just cut it all off.  *wail* What will she play with instead?!

But that's another reason.  Because she sucks on it.  I try to wash my hair with only natural products, but with the amount of oil and skin build up (because I can't wash it every day), it's not getting clean.  I'm using regular old shampoo again, and it works, to a certain extent, but now the ends are dry and split and she's ingesting it.

So my scalp is pimpled, the hair is oily at the base and dry and split at the ends, it's constantly tangled - even when I've brushed it, it's falling out at a prodigious rate - leaving me with thinner hair in the front - which is highlighted by my attempts to keep the stuff out of my eyes, and my child is eating it.

And to top it all off...  I feel gross and hate my appearance in photos.

I don't want to be that mommy - the mommy who screams "no, don't take a picture of me!" and hides behind the baby, who won't leave the house because she's embarrassed to be seen, and who embarrasses her family by looking like a crazy homeless person.

Seize the scissors!  Take it off!  Take it all off!!

...before I change my mind...

Taking a moment to collect myself

Downstairs my child is in her crib screaming her head off.

I should go down and soothe her, but I need a moment.

I finally got so hungry that I had to eat, so I put her in the crib and microwaved the leftover potatoes.  I put butter on them, burning my finger in the process.  Then I ladelled some of the sour cream over the top.  Finally, as her cries reached fever pitch, I opened the cheddar cheese.  Gave it the sniff test.  It passed.  I glanced in, it looked fine.  I dumped it over the potatoes and BAM a big nasty moldy wad of cheese poured out and went SMACK into the potatoes.

Baby screaming, Mommy screaming.

I tried to get all the cheese off the potatoes.

But you know, I'd microwaved the fuckers so much that the cheese and it's mold melted all over the place.

I pondered eating it for about 30 seconds.  Then dumped it in the bin.

There went lunch.

I'm so hungry.  And I just wasted all the fast food I had.  And because I get loopy when I'm hungry and because my hormones are still all out of whack (when will they calm the fuck down?) this is just The Most Awful Horrible Bad Thing to Ever Happen In The Whole Wide World.

I'm gonna crawl into the crib with my daughter now and cry.

*** Edit: Having FINALLY eaten, I can say that I suffer more from low-blood sugar than post-partum.  In fact, the word "loopy" should be changed to "raging lunatic."  Ask the DB.  Ask my BFF.  Feed me on demand or face the WRATH. ***

I need more than 30 minutes a day

A while back I told my BFF that all I really wanted was 30 minutes to myself.  But I totally waste it sleeping or showering when I get it, so what that means is…

I totally need more than 30 minutes a day.  To myself.  Minus a baby.  And minus a husband.

Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely ADORE my child.  And I suppose, the Danish Boy… but…

OMG I want some time ALONE!

Let’s take dinner.

An average dinner is one of us eating while one entertains the baby (we’ve had a rare meal or two where she entertains herself, but alas, dinnertime is also Cranky Baby time) and while I take the baby upstairs to play or something so she doesn’t fuss, the DB stands by my chair while I eat, bouncing an increasingly unhappy baby.

Ever try to eat while your child makes unhappy grunts?

Damn near impossible.

I try to not be That Mom who tells the unfortunate father what to do… but COME ON, walk with the baby, talk to the baby, do something with the baby that IS NOT IN THE DINING ROOM!  Let me eat in peace!

Let’s take last night.

Last night I scarf as fast as I can while he sits with the grumpy baby, across from me, so she can stare at me with plaintive eyes.  “Mommy, this man will not entertain me!  I’m bored!  Hold me!  I miss you and your funny faces!!  Please?” And having Not Finished My Beer, I scooped her up and away.  An HOUR later, I head back to the dinning room, cause you know, my Not Finished Beer remains to be finished and I’m thinking, maybe I can bounce the baby while drinking it, I’m multitalented.  I rock.  I’m THE MOMMY!

He’s read the newspaper.

The newspaper.

Dammit man, I eat in 10 minutes flat so you can take an HOUR for a leisurely meal? 

ARGH!

*** To be fair, I could also write a post about how a few nights ago the DB washed all the dishes while I was trying to feed the baby to sleep and how on Saturday mornings he often takes her for long walks so I can sleep a bit longer.  I kept repeating this to myself last night so that I didn’t take a frying pan to his head.  He's still alive, so I guess it works. ***

I'm Home

What does that mean, "I'm Home"?  Where's home?  What makes a home, anyway?

My friends and family would have me call California home, although I haven't lived there for over 10 years. Certainly it was "home" for a long time after I left, especially when I lived in Rhode Island. With all apologies to friends and folks living in New England - but what a great place to visit!  But California is no longer my home.  It's where I'm from and it's where I wouldn't mind moving back to, but it's not home.

Since I've moved away from home, I've lived in a number of places under a number of conditions. A tent in the desert, the floor of a professor's house, student housing, shared apartment, shared room, small apartment, huge house, California, Rhode Island, Denmark. I'm not the only one who has moved around a lot and lived in many different situations - Danish Boy has lived in a caravan in Holland, a kibbutz in Israel, and more apartments than I could name.

Now that we've bought a house, I can say that I do finally have a place that everyday feels more and more like my *home*. But really, "home" is best described by this song that I discovered on The Girl Who.



Speaking of music - I get all teary-eyed and squeeze the Spawn even more when listening to Pink.  It has nothing to do with the above post.  I just figured that while I was putting up music, I might as well throw this one in to.  :-)

1001 Kisses

Something happens when you have a baby.  Your brain melts or something.  Things that used to be important are suddenly completely unimportant and you find that you can spend five hours doing nothing but kissing your child's toes.

Now that she's four months old - things have gotten even better.  She's started to "kiss" back.

I put "kiss" in quotation marks because it's somewhere between a kiss and a drool attack.

And it's probably one of the most wonderful things in the world.

She also smiles when she sees me.  Not a little grin, but a full eye-squinting-gum-showing-little-bit-of-tongue smile.  She laughs when I blow on her belly.  She giggles when I nibble on her fingers.  She gets surprised when she farts loudly.

I never thought farts were funny until now.  But her shocked face is TOO FUNNY.

There is a lot of truth in the "fourth trimester" - the first three months after birth are pretty dull.  Eat, sleep, poop.  And cry.  She was constantly gazing just over my shoulder at something that wasn't there.

At least I hope there wasn't something there.

One time I was looking in her eyes to see my reflection (the only way to see if she was looking right at me or, as usual, just past my ear) and I thought I saw something move behind me.  I must have jumped two feet in the air.  There was nothing behind me when I looked.  But... well... I turned the lights on in the rest of the house and was jumpy for the rest of the evening.

And while I adored my little Spawn, she wasn't really all that exciting.  It was hard to keep talking to her when there was absolutely no response.  You begin to feel pretty stupid talking to a baby that just keeps looking at you like you are an idiot.

Why won't this woman just SHUT UP!  What do you want from me?

But over the course of the last month she's turned from a newborn into a baby.  She looks at me.  She smiles and talks, laughs and "kisses."  She's become, dare I say it, FUN!

How could you not kiss this??  Her hands and feet are slightly blurry in this photo because she was waving them around and telling me about how she's wriggled her way from one end of the crib to the other using nothing but her head and heels.  

I mean, obviously the dishes aren't done and the clothes aren't folded and there is cat hair ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE, because I'm busy kissing this amazing baby!

It's Not My Fault!

He talks with his mouth full!

(Normally, this would be a big "ewwww MANNERS MAN!" moment - but since having a baby, we've had to combine as many things as possible to try to get it all done.  If I could figure out how to drink coffee and shower at the same time, I'd do it.)

DB: And the title was something like "sunshine and islands"...
AG: Sunshine and VIOLENCE?
DB: No - ISLANDS.
AG: I heard VIOLENCE.
DB: No, it was definitely ISLANDS.
AG: That's kinda too bad... I really like "and VIOLENCE!"
DB: Anyway...

You know what I love about our relationship?  That this conversation doesn't even make him blink.  He wanted to tell me about his day and NOTHING was going to get in his way... not even his wife's verbal tangents.

Almost there...

Last week I passed the theory portion of the driving test that I need to take to get me a Danish driver's license.

Ja, bitches!  Hvad skal du være særligt opmærksom på NU?

Translation: Yeah, ladies of questionable politeness, what should you be especially aware of now?

So, next it is driving around, taking direction in Danish, being særligt opmærksom på bicycles, pedestrians, and stray cows... hey, it's the boonies out here... and then I'll take THAT test...

And then...

Then I'll have a Danish driver's license and I'll FINALLY be able to get someone to help me with my NEMotherfuckID so I can FINALLY log into bank accounts and tax accounts.  (You can only get phone help for your NemID if you have a Danish passport or a Danish driver's license... otherwise you need to rely on the very friendly, but not particularly well-trained in NemID shenanigans, Municipal Secretaries of Magic.  I'm not changing my citizenship, so a-driving I will go.)

Not that I really need to be able to get the damn thing to work, since it turns out that my accountant can log into my tax accounts.

Yeah, *I* can't get my NemID to work, so *I* can't log into my account, but my accountant, who I've NEVER MET can get all the numbers he needs to find out that I didn't pay enough in taxes last year.

This is not particularly what I wanted him to find.  I wanted him to find butt-loads of money owed ME.  This is normally the way of things.  But that dear Danish Boy of mine went and earned Too Much Money.  I don't particularly feel like we're living in a higher tax bracket.

So while I may finally achieve my goal of getting a Danish driver's license - and doing the WHOLE THING IN DANISH to boot - it's not like I'm going to be getting a CAR to DRIVE at the end of it.

Thus the ongoing argument around the house - Audi, Volvo, Benz, or an Opel named Oliver... is moot.

However, I've discovered my Drag Queen name:  Farlig Vejsving

Pronounced "far-lee vwhy-swing" or as we say it in America - Dangerous Curves... baby.

Actually I love saying ubeting vigepligt "oo-bee-ting vee-a-plickt" which means "unconditional right of way" or "Yield Motherfucker!"  This nudges out "methamphetamines" as my new favorite thing to say, which is probably a good thing for my small child.  Because the health nurse would probably be rather alarmed to hear my child pipe up with "methamphetamines mommy!" during one of our visits.

Not that my child is saying much other than "pbthaaaaaaarghl" at the moment.  But really, it's a small step from there to "methamphetamines."

The word.  Not the drugs.  I'm pretty sure my child is many steps away from drugs.

I'm a shoe-in for Mother of The Year, I tell ya.