Now We Are Six

I may or may not have been saving that blog post title for the last five years, one month, and seven days. I can neither confirm nor deny. (But you already know it's the truth, anyway.)

"'What day is it?'
'It's today,' squeaked Piglet.
'My favorite day,' said Pooh."

"'When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,' said Piglet at last, 'what's the first thing you say to yourself?'
'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh. 'What do you say, Piglet?'
'I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?' said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. 'It's the same thing,' he said."

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it the present."

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."

-- All quotes by A.A. Milne

Wish You Were Here

On Monday -- just three days from now -- Shae starts kindergarten. I KNOW. Didn't we just have her first birthday party like a week ago? They weren't messing around when they said time flies. Like, it was JUST Memorial Day, wasn't it? And now here we are, face to face, a couple of Silver Spoons ... WAIT. Wrong song.

ANYWAY. Shae and my sister and my niece and my parents and I played hooky on Wednesday and went to the beach, to soak up some sun and splash in the surf while we still can. (Also, we knew someone who was down there for the week, so we could stay overnight.) And you know what?

It was kind of a last-minute, game-time decision, but it was exactly the right one. It's funny how sometimes you don't realize how much you just need a mental-health, stress-relief, photosynthesizin' kind of day until you're in the middle of one and you're already 90+ pages into a book and you're sort of half sunk into the sand and you find yourself thinking, "Where has this place been all my life?"

And it was pretty much the perfect day off, too. Temps in the low 80's, low humidity, bright sunshine but not too hot, hardly anybody on the beach really, nice warm water, waves a little rough but nothing we couldn't handle. If you open the dictionary to "perfection," there is probably a picture of a day just like that.

I'm not the sort of person who normally just takes off on a Wednesday, just because, but you know what? I can be convinced.

Salty Piece Of Land

More pictures from the beach, because of reasons.

Boogie boarding: you're doing it wrong. And still, somehow, doing it right.

Shae says that at the next Olympics she's going to win first place in all the swimming events. I don't think she'll be ready for Rio in 2016, but maybe by 2024 she'll be the new Missy Franklin. And if that is the case, I hope that when Costas and company does a package on "how it all began," they include this picture.

Somebody is not sure whether 64°F is quite warm enough for civilized people. (Glad it wasn't just me.)

Now I really wish that I had put Shae in her suit that matches Makayla's. This is what I get for letting her pick her own clothes out - my perfect shot is ruined. RUINED.

We did a lot of jumping. Shae likes to jump. I hope she never discovers the pole vault, or we'll all be in trouble.

Those eyelashes KILL ME DEAD, every time.

It should be reassuring to me that EVERY.SINGLE.FAMILY.PICTURE. turns out like this, because it means it is not operator error, and yet. AND YET.

THOSE EYELASHES AGAIN. Gaaaah. Who do I need to speak to about an upgrade?

Who's Zooming Who?

I love this picture because it looks like my kid is photobombing herself.

I can't even remember what I was supposed to be taking a picture of. My sister's family in the background, maybe? I can't really get Shae to pose for me right now, but if she see's that I'm zooming in on someone else, forget it.

Shae taught Makayla the "knock me over" trick. Makayla LOVES to knock people over now. Mostly Shae, though, because Shae is her very favorite. The only name I hear her say more than "Shae-Shae" is "Pop-Pop." Not that I blame her, really -- Shae and Pop-Pop are both pretty awesome.

I wanted her to lay in that patch of sun there. I really did. You can see how well that worked out for me. (Well, pretty well, aesthetically speaking, but as a parent, I was pretty much all "HELL NAW!")

Although, by this point in the day, she had been running around for several hours PLUS swimming, so I guess I should just be happy she isn't actively crying and drooling all over herself.

Here Come The Sobs

OH. MY GOD. YOU GUYS.

I know it's been like two weeks, and I have so much to talk about! I could tell you all about school -- which, BTW, I should probably have written the last part of that last sentence as "... I have so much about which to talk," but whatever -- or I could tell you about work or I could tell you about my very recent truly traumatic experience at kindergarten (!!!) orientation (???) or I could tell you about how my neighbors' approximately 178 kittens have been hanging out on my porch making me pretty much The Simpsons' Crazy Cat Lady.

But.

Instead let me tell you about how a quick, spur-of-the-moment decision to play dress-up with my kid just about gave me a nervous breakdown. How about that, instead?

You may remember that approximately 142½ years ago -- okay, it was 2½ years ago, but it FEELS like it was very very long ago -- Shae was the flower girl in my sister's wedding. She wore a love white dress that was about eleventy sizes too big because she was two years old then, and the dress was a size 4T, because that was the best we could do. Shae's just about a month shy of five years old, and she's LITERALLY four feet tall now, and she wears a size 6 or a 7 because we need everything to be long enough to cover her ankles and her belly button, but I was looking for something in her armoire at bedtime -- don't ask me what, because I can't remember -- and I caught a glimpse of Ye Olde Flowere Girle Dresse out of the corner of my eye, and I know, "What the heck? Let's see if it still fits!"

  

And lo and behold,whaddaya know? It still does! It's significantly shorter than it used to be -- way back when, it went almost down to the floor, and now it's above the knees, and it looks kind of like some kind of empire-waisted babydoll thingy, and it's definitely tight in the armpits because Shae's shoulders are broader than they used to be -- but we could zip it up fine. She had room in it, even. And while she was twirling around her room and putting on her white Easter shoes from last year (the ones that definitely DON'T fit any more, and can I just tell you how much I HATE buying white shoes every Easter?), I got what I thought was a brilliant idea.

  

I got out my veil, from my wedding ensemble, which we played with before. And I don't know how it happened, I must have stopped paying attention for a second, or I blinked, or something, but when I looked again ...

  

 ... my little girl was standing there ...

  

 ... with chocolate still on her face from an ice cream sandwich she had eaten earlier ...

 

... and she was about to get married. And I needed to lie down for a while.

  

WHAT IS HAPPENING? HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN AWAY?

Christmas Haircut

What, like you don't do something special for yourself to get ready for Christmas? Shae got a haircut. (I'm getting a pedicure later today, if I get out of work early.)

And I am the crazy idiot parent who documents the whole thing for "posterity." Or, you know, "the blog."

It's kind of a good thing that my kid is a total dorky ham who loves to get her picture taken while she is doing things she's not supposed to.

Like gnawing on a comb. (Not her fault -- it was past dinnertime and I didn't pack any snacks in my purse.)

I don't blame her for loving to sit under the dryer. When I am at the salon, the dryer is my happy place. They could leave me there all day with foils on my head and back issues of the gossip rags and a cup of tea. But I'd never leave.

It was a pretty standard haircut -- not much we can do with her head except make it less bushy and 'fro-like. Maybe I should learn how to braid; she really liked that.

Then we went home and ate two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and posed for a "proof of life picture" with my old Santa Claus bank, the end.

Big Reveal

So ... here's my new haircut.

Taa-daa!

I had a good 8-10 inches hacked off, and lowlights added. Those bright streaks, where a normal person would have highlights? That's my hair's "natural" color. I went darker -- part auburn, and part light bronzy-brown. If my hair stylist is correct (and I have no reason to doubt her), the red will fade to about 1-1½ shades darker than the bronze she added. I really, really love the color.

Not sure about the cut yet. I mean, I am not unhappy with the length (just brushing my shoulders) and the layers, but to get my ends to curl under like that, she blew it all out and did fancy things with a blow dryer and a round brush, and I'll never be able to replicate that. I am criminally hairdo-deficient. For the last two days I just let my hair air-dry and do whatever it will, and it does this little flippy thing at the ends. It's not awful -- it's kind of cute, actually -- but it isn't the same.

Here is the great thing about having a good hair stylist, though: she knows that I like to put exactly zero effort into my hair -- because, HELLO, I have a wild-headed three-year-old to attend to in the mornings! -- and she gave me a cut that is intentionally low-maintenance. It's too short for my standard ponytail, but I can pull the front up and fasten it with one of Shae's hairclips, and it's still totally fine. And the color is so shiny! Even some of the guys at work complimented me.

I also got my eyebrows waxed, which you can't tell from the picture, but that is maybe the biggest single improvement, for serious. Brooke Shields can pull off a full natural brow, but not me. I just got everything shaped up and less American-werewolf-in-London-y, and it is lovely. My eyes are my favorite feature, and now you can actually see them, instead of trying to find them under the caterpillars that live on my forehead.

There you go. The new me (which is basically only the new me, except partially red-headed). Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Now if only I could find pants that fit.

What Am I About To Do?

In 12 hours and 50 minutes, I will be chopping off my hair. Well, not all of it, and I won't be cutting it. But I am having my hair cut tomorrow morning, and getting it colored, and I am TERRIFIED.

Every time I get a haircut, I hate it. HATE. Violently hate. And the last time I changed my hair color, I might have kind of gone a little berserk and maybe cried myself to sleep for a week.

But here I go again. Right now my hair goes down to the middle of my back and is a sort of shade that is somewhere on the blonde continuum, with a bunch of random leftover highlights from spending the summer at the pool. The last time I paid someone to color my hair, it was last July, and I do mean LAST July, like 2009 July, just before my sister's wedding. I have had trims since then, but no new style, and my roots are past my ears at this point.

I have some ideas about what haircut I want, and I think I know what I want to do with the color -- a bob, and lowlights in some kind of amber-copper-auburn-red -- but we'll see what I actually decide. If I even go through with it, which is potentially doubtful at this point. If I do what I am thinking about doing, I'm going to be getting about a foot of hair lopped off. I am psyching myself right out, even though I trust my hairdresser and know she would never steer me wrong.

Wish me luck. And Valium. And be prepared to hold me if this all goes terribly, terribly wrong.

Malarky

Oh, yes, we have been up to shenanigans.

And we'll be telling you all about it. Soon.

Getting Our Feet Wet

We really didn't waste any time jumping right into our vacation -- before everyone was even there, not much more than an hour after we picked up the keys, Shae was already splashing in the ocean.

Rescuing jellyfish.

Dragging Pop-pop into the waves.

And there was plenty more where that came from.

Never enough, of course, but plenty more.

Wordless Wednesday: Bluest Blue

Wordless Wednesday: Red-Eye

The Boy Is Back In Town

Look who popped in for a visit over the long weekend: Cousin Joey!

Shae has referred to him as "Baby Joey" for so long that it's hard to break her of the habit, but he's not really a baby any more, is he? He's a full-blown toddler now, and it is pretty awesome.

I mean, Shae has trouble with boundaries, and what is and is not appropriate behavior around kids younger than she is, but Joey is an absolute trooper. He followed Shae around for a lot of the weekend.

From what I understand, he was calling for Shae when we weren't around, and I can tell you that hearing him say "SHAE!" is the cutest thing that I have ever heard in my life. He says it just like that, too, with the implied exclamation point and everything. Adorbs.

Not only does he have excellent taste in favorite cousins, he also has fantastic taste in hats and mothers, and he rocks the snot out of that little rashguard shirt.

And he loves everyone. He let lots of people hold him. Wandered right up to me one time and said "UP!" and when I grabbed him he clapped. Like I'm a Pavlovian test subject and he had just given me the proper reinforcement.

Shae's already asking when we're going to see him again, and making crazy little preschooler plans. She can't wait to get the band back together. And can you blame her, really? Just look at this kid. Our family is full up with awesome, beautiful children.

You Are My Sunshine

The first video taken with our new (HD!) camera could not be more perfect:

Whatever you're doing today, enjoy the sunshine!

The Saga Begins

The cover was taken off my grandparents' pool on Saturday, and the statue of the Blessed Mother was put on her pedestal yesterday. Nobody can go in the pool until the Stella Maris is positioned to watch over them.

After that, all bets are off.

That water is COLD, but Shae doesn't care. She's been asking practically every day since the snow started melting when she could go swimming. "Is Nana Mousie's pool open yet, Mommy? Soon? Can I help? I'm ready, let's go!"

Did you hear that, world? She's ready, let's go!

It's going to be a long, wonderful summer.