The Haircut

I was content to cut Monkey's hair all the same length. 5 minutes, a quick once over to even it out, and a trim along the neck. That's it. Ben was not happy with this plan. He said he wanted his son's hair to have "personality." Fine. You asked for it, you got it, buddy. Today we tried to do a "high fade." You know, short on the sides and in the back, blended up to a longer length on top.

I told him it wouldn't be easy. I told him that a 15-month-old will not sit still well enough to do a REALLY good job...it's nearly impossibly to get it even when the kid moves unexpectedly all the time. But he insisted. So I tried. At first, I knew that I hadn't cut the sides/back short enough. Now it looks like Monkey has no hair because it's a lovely color where one second it's there, the next it's not...it's a great optical illusion. His hair also still does the baby swirl right at the crown, so it splits in funny places.

Then Ben said I hadn't made the fade high enough. So I raised it. Then he said it wasn't even...I hadn't blended enough. Now he says that it makes Monkey look younger than he is. He's 15 months old...kind of hard to make him look younger with a haircut.

I think it looks OK...for a first go. Sure, the line isn't completely straight...but that was never going to happen. It's my blending I think I need to work on. It will look better in a week or so, when it's grown out a little. Apparently I now have visual representation of my learning curve...in the line of my son's hair. Until then...he'll wear hats.

I didn't realize this...

But I miss coffee. A really good cup of drip coffee with enough cream/skim milk/whatever to make it look like a latte and enough sugar/sweetener/whatever to make it taste like one. I miss it. Before Monkey came along, I went, oh, just over 2 years without caffeine (except on the occasions where I was so stressed/tired/PO'd that I broke down and had a diet coke or a mocha). Because, as *we* (we being the ladies who have to do a little more than think about sexy time to get pregnant) know that caffeine=bad for baby-making.

Then we found out Monkey was on his way...OK, no caffeine for 9 more months. Once he was here, for the first couple months I was too tired. Yep, that's right, too tired to remember to make coffee. On the days where I did remember to make a cup, by the time I got around to drinking it, it was ice cold. Not exactly what I was looking for.

After that stage, I was so excited to get sleep and feel rested that it was the "hey, I don't need it!" phase. And now I'm so used to rarely having it that it just doesn't really cross my mind. Until recently. Recently I've been craving coffee.

As I sit here, drinking a ridiculously good cup of coffee I just made, I thought "Oh buddy, how I have missed you. You are a friend." Coffee has been sadly neglected (by me, not by  Ben. He remembers every day...).

Then I think, "hey, if/when we want another baby, I'll have to give up caffeine again." I'd better not get too used to this. It will probably backfire and then I'll go into withdrawals...you know headaches, shaking, being so snarky that even I don't want to be around me. That's not fun. So I'll stick with missing coffee and having a cup once in a while just to remind myself that I do, in fact, like the stuff!

Rent Vs Own...

We're settled in living in our new state. I can't help but start to wish we could buy a house...that it were a feasible option for us. It's just not. We move so frequently that I cannot imagine a) having to sell one house and buy another every time, especially when there is no guarantee that it would sell or b) becoming a landlord...no thanks!

So, we rent (or, in our case now, live in on-post housing because it's pretty much the only option). In the meantime, I dream about painting, replacing flooring, remodeling entire bathrooms and kitchens, and hiring decorators to help when I just can't get it quite right. And I thought about building a pro & con list of renting/owning. Here we go...

Thinking about a change...

I'm thinking about switching my blog over to WordPress. Not that I don't like blogger, I just think it's not as user-friendly as WordPress. Who knows. Maybe I just need a different venue...or to delete this blog altogether. I'm also not super sure what to blog about on my "personal" blog anymore. I don't do as much crafting as I used to, mainly because there isn't a craft store within an hour's drive of where we now live. That and I still don't have a job to financially support my crafting addiction. And, let's be honest, I'm not that good at it. I look at examples of other people's crafts online and I just don't think I'm up to par. Maybe I'm not cut out for blogging at all...I'm constantly trying to think of what to write about, so there's no concise theme. I don't do anything exceptionally well, so nothing ever looks all that great. I'm constantly second-guessing myself, from the title of the blog, to the title of the post, to whether or not my rants and raves are even interesting to anyone else. Maybe I'm just annoying and need to stop.

Then again...I have to release it all somehow. There are things that just feel better when you write them out, and I don't particularly want to "write" them out (my handwriting tends to get messy). I read blogs written by my friends and my first reaction is always "How great! They did an awesome job! I bet I could do that!" And then I realize that they took the idea and ran with it, and it would just be redundant for me to write about the same thing.

Ugh.

My Kid Sleeps Through the Night, Why Can't I?

For the past few weeks there had been at least one night a week that I max out at a whopping 2 hours of sleep. I try everything I know...go to the bathroom, get something to drink, read...nothing that has worked in the past works to get me to drift back off. So here I am, 5am, and I've been up since 1am.

It usually starts by hearing Monkey cry out in his sleep...but he goes right back down, I don't even have to check on him. Then I start thinking of things that HAVE to get done...put the car seat back in my car if it was in Ben's, take Monkey to daycare so that I can go to the gym (and pray that he finally has a good day while he's there), plan out dinner, groom the dogs, etc. Then my brain is on, and no amount of coercion will convince it to turn off again and let me sleep.

The good news? Middle of the night is a great time to catch up on my DVR'd shows that Ben doesn't want to watch and that Monkey won't let me watch because I have to, you know, be an involved parent (or something like that). But now all of my DVR'd shows are over, other shows aren't on demand yet, and if I go to sleep now I'll be even more tired in 2 hours when Monkey wakes up. That would lead to me taking him to daycare and (instead of going to pilates) coming home and crashing...setting an alarm for when I have to go pick him up again.

So, aside from the gym, I'm thinking that today will not be all that productive. Just a hunch.