Woulda Coulda Shoulda

Chickadee is dying for me to cut off all my hair. She says she thinks it will be “cute.” Then again, she also says she thinks I should dye my gray bright pink once I do, and she currently has plans to streak her hair purple, so I’m not sure I’m relying on her for reliable hair advice.

Monkey has no opinions on hair, not really. He dislikes the actual act of having his hair cut—the sitting still! the scratchy little pieces of hair tickling his neck and nose!—but has reached a place where having scraggly hair hanging in his eyes bothers him more, so we generally keep his hair fairly short. I can’t quite get on board with that oh-so-southern thing of just buzzing your boychild’s head as soon as the weather warms up, though, so I kind of hedge my style bets and give him that floppy skater-boy cut that’s longer on top and shorter beneath.

The problem is that I tend to become hyperfocused on minor, inconsequential things because they are slightly less scary to me than larger, actually-important skills. And so we have a Hair Issue. (more…)

I tried really hard not to burst out into mournful song during my post at Off Our Chests this week, but I have to warn you that my girl is growing up and it’s making me a little sentimental. Okay, a lot sentimental. Okay, FINE; I’m a gibbering mess. (I keep telling her to just please be UGLIER and LESS AWESOME, but she refuses to listen.)

In addition to that craziness, y’all know I’m insanely proud to be involved with The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, and as part of their “Slice of Life” series for Autism Acceptance Month, today they’re featuring an interview with Monkey. (I may have had to bribe him with pie to get his cooperation.)

As for me, it turns out I am far less interesting than my kids, so that’s all I have for you today.

First: A health update! Thank you so much to everyone who had such kind words and thoughts for my sweet mother-in-law; once again, she fooled us all. She’s out of the ICU and doing much better. This is good news because we love her, but excellent news because I don’t think Otto could’ve taken it if things had gone differently. (Although I didn’t mention this in the last post, while waiting on updates on my mother-in-law, we unfortunately lost two other magnificent folks—their deaths weren’t unexpected, but were still way too soon. “They” say bad things come in threes, and for once I was VERY VERY GLAD that they are dirty stinking liars.)

So. What could POSSIBLY be better than sickness and death? I MEAN REALLY? We started off the year with a real bang in the stressors department, and by any measure of stress and “life challenges” one would probably think this was enough, no? I certainly would’ve checked the “FULL UP ON ANGST, THANKS” box, had I been polled on the matter.

[Sidebar: I WAS NOT POLLED. Still bitter, frankly.]

Well, death and sickness was not to be the entire story for this, my VERY FAVORITE January. Nope! I picked Monkey and Mario up from Hippie School one day and Teresa asked me to call her “when I had a sec” after I got home. (more…)

My current earworm:

Because, yes, today my Monkey is (sing it with me!) 1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10 11 12! (Remember when they only ever counted up to 12 on Sesame Street? It was like numbers higher than that just didn’t matter, or even exist.) (more…)

I kept Monkey home from school yesterday because they were having one of their fantastic hippie field trips where they spend the entire day in the woods connecting to nature*.

These field trips are great, but even when Monkey’s doing okay, we have determined that I need to go with him as he pretty much requires one-on-one support for them, because if he decides to melt down in the middle of the wilderness that’s kind of a pickle for the teachers there who are dealing with other kids, too.

And right now, Monkey is maybe coming down with a cold. Maybe! I mean, who knows? How would we know? He looks a little “off,” but he’s also the kid who never knows when he’s sick, he just starts being a jerk and we’re left to puzzle it together. So. I dunno, but the day BEFORE yesterday was kind of a disaster, so I kept him home, and he was MAD. (more…)