So long, childhood. Its been nice knowing you.

I don’t know how it happened.  To ME of all people? 

A few days ago I was in University, drinking obscene amounts of alcohol and stealing broken plastic chairs with my friends and a few days before that I was begging to go out on a school night with my highschool boyfriend and a few days before that I was bawling in my dads arms because I hadn’t made the Grade 9 basketball team and a few days before that I was homesick at a sleepover down the street….

Sometime, somehow, faster than I could believe it, I evolved into a mother, a doctor and a wife.   But up until yesterday I still FELT like a kid.  Suddenly, today - -everything changed.

This week, Toby and Rob are leaving for a few days I am faced with something I haven’t had in ages: solitude.

I will miss them immensely.  All day today I keep giving Toby extra kisses and taking longer smells of his beautiful blond hair while our usual Sunday husband and wife natterings are laced with humour and affection.  But at the same time, growing inside of me has been a little flicker of anticipation…I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but suddenly out of the blue the thick molten lava of excitement bubbled up from the depths of my brain and out my mouth before I could stop it,

“Tomorrow, when I get home and there’s no one here....I’m going… to… GARDEN!!!!”

That’s right, folks.  It has been a long 31 year childhood.  I’ve enjoyed it and I’m sad to see it go.  But when I’m given a night completely devoid of responsibility or discretion and I choose to spend it WEEDING the GARDEN, the stamp of adulthood has been sealed.

A special friendship

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.” - Heather Cortez

There is nothing more fitting than this quotation to describe the relationship between Toby and my father.

In all his 82 years of life, I have never seen my dad so taken by any other person as he is by Toby. Initially, he was disappointed not to have had a 7th granddaughter, but it was only a matter of hours before his first grandson won him over.

No matter how cranky either one of them is acting, if the other one enters the room it’s all smiles. We call this Toby’s Grandpa-smile because it is only ever this big when he’s smiling to Grandpa. It’s a huge you-can-see-all-6-teeth-a-twinkle-in-the-eyes-and-perhaps-some-dimples-to-boot smile. And its reciprocal- - plus or minus a few teeth, of course.

Today, when I was trying to leave my parents house (after much bemoaning on the part of both my father AND Toby) Toby was upstairs throwing a royal-I’m-overtired-and-I-Don’t-want-to-do-anything-you-say –hissy fit. My mom and I were consoling/luring him downstairs with the help of his beloved Bear, when I said, “Toby- -can you take Bear downstairs to Grandpa?” Right away he stopped crying and set to work at going downstairs while holding his bear so he could give it to Grandpa. When we got halfway down I saw that my dad, having listening from the kitchen, had also set to work to get his wobbly self as quickly as possible to the front hall so he could be waiting for Toby (and Bear) at the bottom of the stairs. (Anyone who has seen my dad walk knows this is no small feat…)

But the GREAT thing about Grandpa’s wobbly-hobbly walk is that it comes with a CANE. Toby LOVES the cane. He likes to bang it on the floor, hit people in the head with it, play tug of war and knock things over with it. So he was very excited to find it lying on the floor in Grandpa’s room yesterday morning. Part of Toby’s morning ritual at my parents house is to “check on Grandpa sleeping” which he does, very quietly, about 10 times a morning as he impatiently waits for him to get up. But yesterday morning he very quietly (I can’t believe my child does ANYTHING quietly but this story comes from my mother) walked over to Grandpa’s cane and, resisting the urge to bang, crash or whack something with it, took it over to the bed and tried to hand it to my sleeping father. The cane is pretty boring without his favourite person attached to it.

I think the most touching moment of the visit was last night…After a busy day in the Big City, Toby went down easily at bedtime but lay in his crib happily talking to himself before he fell asleep. Dad was downstairs watching the VERY IMPORTANT hockey game (with only a few reminders from my mother coaching him along…). After about 15 minutes my dad called my mom over,

“Lynda! Turn off the volume to the game- - I want to hear the baby!”

And my dad sat there for 2 hours, watching the game on mute and smiling as he listened to his grandson chatting away in his crib over the baby monitor.

I don’t know what my exact opinion is on reincarnation - -but when you see these two together there’s no doubt in my mind that their souls are long lost friends.

Fly by kisses

Warning : This blog entry may very well cause me to be disowned by BOTH of the men in my life….but I couldn’t resist…

 

Love hurts.  Toby has shown this to us in MANY ways over his first 14 months of life, but none so blatantly as he has been doing lately with his kisses.

 

I don’t know if you remember from my previous post, but the poor little guy has been having some problems lately discerning kisses from bites.  In his head, in fact, I think really MEANINGFUL kisses ARE bites- -you just love someone SO MUCH that you end the opened mouth face press with a CHOMP for good measure.

 

Recently, though, Toby has gotten more and more creative with his kisses.  Why SHOULD they just be on the cheek?  We’ve got lots more readily accessible body parts that are easier for his 1 foot frame to hit during his fly by love-attacks…

 

It was all fun and games though until a few days ago when our little guy took it a little too far…

 

I didn’t know who to comfort first- -it all happened so fast…Rob was sitting on a stool reading the newspaper and I was at my computer. Toby was walking by the stool and chomped down between Rob’s legs in an honest-to-goodness-hard-core-skin-piercing-penis-kiss.  I don’t have a penis.  But by the reaction Rob gave I think it is quite possibly the WORST place to receive a skin-breaking-love-bite….In the blink of an eye the stool,  the newspaper, Rob’s shorts and our son fell to the floor with a CRASH and a YELP.  Toby immediately BURST into uncontrollable sobbing as Rob bounced around the kitchen grabbing his penis in despair.

I did what any mother would do in this situation – picked up my son and started to cry.  Useful, hormones, useful.

I am happy to recount that The Penis is OK.  (I capitalized it – small pittance for being bitten and then blogged about…)  Toby is also OK, although he was very confused and I think his feelings were hurt.  Rob, being the bigger man and a great daddy, put his genital woes aside to comfort Toby and explain to him that we don’t like biting.  We left it at that.  One day he’ll get it.  …And I thought the breastfeeding stories would embarrass him…

The Dry Bath

Tonight we had an exciting evening-  -the power went out.  Not because of any inclement weather.  It’s a BEAUTIFUL night out.  And not even because of construction.  Nope - -we live in the middle of nowhere, so sometimes, for no reason, our power goes out.

In a flash of a second EVERY plan I had for the evening went out the window- - dinner, bath time, watching TV, reading my email, calling some friends (damn portable phones)  I raced to the window to see what the other neighbors were doing.  All two of them were doing…well…nothing, really.  Another point about living in the middle of nowhere- - people are pretty chill about life. I EXPECTED people to be running around the streets shaking their non-defrosted dinner meats at the hydro poles in fits of rage.  But no - -none of that.  Just the usual silence and the odd bird chirp.  I would just have to deal with this.

SO bedtime was interesting.  Toby is a great sleeper but only – ONLY – because we made him into one with countless nights of crying (on mommy’s part) followed by more countless night of crying-it-out (on Toby’s part) followed by his illness, followed by this sentence all over again.  So we tend not to MESS with bedtime routine.

Tonight this took some serious creativity on our part.  Bath time was particularly interesting.  The boy has had a bath every day before bed for the past year.  (Do we get extra parenting points for this or just the smug knowledge that we have an uber-clean child?) But because we live on a well (because we live in the middle of nowhere) we can’t run water while the power is out.  So we had a “dry bath”.  We weren’t sure how it would go over but Toby didn’t really seem to notice.

We all took our usual positions –Rob waited with the towel while I sat on a stool in our tub and we played with bath toys and I used a damp cloth and cleaned him a little bit and we banged on the taps and played with our penis - -the usual bath time stuff.

Then it was bedtime without the FAN for white noise or the NIGHTLIGHT for reassurance.

He did quite well until I put him in his crib and he started to cry.  That’s right, little guy, SOMETHING is not right but we’re not just sure what it is….

He’s off to sleep now and I’m putting my creative powers to the test, trying to make dinner without the microwave or running water. Thank goodness for laptop batteries….

ADDENDUM - -the power is back on.  I have learned something from tonight : If you think your middle-of-no-where-I-can't-use-the-water-to-water-the-plants-like-my-husband-asked-me-to-because-of-the-power-outage excuse is a good one -- its not.  Apparently you can use the lake water.  Also, if your miraculous BBQ has solved your dinner fiasco, just make sure the tank is full of gas before you count your chickens or all you'll be counting are half cooked sausages.

Damn You, Billy

I have become somewhat of an exercise video workout addict. Not that I DO them, just that I buy and hoard them….I know- - its weird. I think there’s something appealing about perfectly looking people promising you similar results while smiling and not producing a drop of sweat. And all in 20 minutes! Or just 5 cycles of 3 minutes! Or something that sounds cheerful and EASY…. And you don’t even have to leave your own home. AND you can PAUSE it whenever you like and NO ONE will know.

The problem is, that I just haven’t found one that I really LIKE yet. Which SHOULD discourage me from buying more but it just makes the pursuit that much more enthralling.

Today when I was out I bought FOUR new ones. FOUR. I don’t even buy four pairs of new underwear at a time, but for some reason today I thought I’d hit a jackpot at the discount video store.

So this afternoon I tried out the first one.

BILLY’S BOOT CAMP : COMBAT MISSION 2 -- MAXIMUM POWER

Everyone is dressed in army gear and the “music” is them COUNTING to 8 over and over and over again at what I soon discovered to be a fairly QUICK pace….hardcore.

And yet -- I didn’t think it did much for me. I broke a sweat and my arms burned a bit from repeatedly torturing my deltoids, but I wasn’t OVERLY impressed….until about 3 hours later when I tried to lift up a small margarine container of water to dump over Toby’s head in the bath. By the time I got it over Toby’s head my entire arm was CONVULSING in objection. The convulsions resurfaced as I lifted his TOOTHBRUSH (with toothpaste on it) up to my eye level to brush his teeth.

It appears perhaps I HAVE found COMBAT MISSION 2 to be a bit of a challenge…In fact I’m a little scared to see what tomorrow holds. And, as I dread the inevitable end of this post because of the 15cm arm raise closing my laptop will require, I have a sinking suspicion that Billy and his Maximum Power BOOT CAMP will soon be back on the shelf with the other videos….

The Day my Boy became a Man

Toby had manly day today.

It started at lunch when he chose to eat ribs over pablam. He ate them down by the fistful. HE wasn’t at all deterred by the hot BBQ sauce either- - whenever he got a particularly potent piece he merely clenched his eyes shut and slapped his face repeatedly until the discomfort passed and then kept going.

Manly.

THEN – when our trip to the library today was foiled by mom’s faulty internet-reading-capabilities, Toby declined my suggestion of the park for the (rare) opportunity to sit on the curb and watch cars and trucks go by.

Manly.

He even waved at them.

Manly.

That is, until they responded with a honk of the horn which scared him.

Not so manly.

Perhaps his manliest move of the day was the discovery of his new hobby : bum scratching. Full on, hand in the diaper, I-know-you’re-reading-me-a-story-right-now-but-man-my-ass-is-itchy-and-damn-it-feels-good-to-keep-my-hands-down-here-MANLINESS.

And, to top it all off, this move has also gained him a new “look”. See above. Because when you live to scratch your bum, diapers become REALLY cumbersome, but if you wear them halfway DOWN your bum at all times, it allows for easier access.

My post was SUPPOSED to end here tonight. But old Cracker-pants Toby threw a fast one on me tonight. Just before bedtime, right after Rob had LEFT for soccer, Toby reached down for one more SCRATCH before bedtime and triumphantly pulled out a huge pile of poop. Which he then smeared onto my face.

I won’t tell you what he did NEXT with it because if for some reason he ever READS this post when he’s older I don’t want him yelling at me afterwards, YOU WROTE IN YOUR BLOG THAT YOU LET ME EAT SHIT!?!?! So I’ll skip that part.

Suffice it to say we had some cleanin’ up to do.

He then ended his day in the MANLIEST of all ways - -marching around the house in a shirt and no pants or underwear on, genitals swinging, while swigging from a bottle of the hard stuff – well water. And then he peed on he floor.

The Prescription

In order for me to write this post I have to reveal some medical information about my mother.  This TOTALLY goes against my beliefs in confidentiality, but in the interest of my faithful blog-followers here goes : ….My mother often suffers from….wait for it….heartburn.   And sometimes she finds relief from….brace yourselves….Nexium. 

OK – I got that out on the table.  Hopefully she’ll still be speaking to me if she ever reads this.

So today my mother emailed me asking for a medical favour.  My mother is the most APPROPRIATE mother of a doctor you could imagine.  Despite the fact that she lives with an ailing, slightly demented, vague and falling apart 82 year old, she very rarely calls me with medical questions.  In fact, I think the last time she asked me to look at something on my dad it turned out to be skin cancer.  And the time before that was back in 2005 when he had a massive GI bleed.

(By the end of this post I may as well attach their medical records for you to peruse…apparently my confidentiality conscience from paragraph one has gone out the window)

SO today my mother asked me to do her a favour because she has run out of her Nexium.  She didn’t want me to write her a prescription for fear that I would lose my license for prescribing to a family member so she suggested I COURIER her down some samples from the office.

COURIER them?

Seriously- - I wrote her back – let me PLAY THE ODDS on this one and take a CHANCE that the big hot shot King Doctor of the World doesn’t strike me down for writing you a prescription for some HEARTBURN tablets.  (I phrased it more politely than that).

NOT TO WORRY she wrote back an hour later, her doctor filled them for her over the phone.

She did?  This being the doctor who refused to give you your NORMAL lab results over the phone the day that your grandson was being intubated and shipped down to the ICU at Sick Kids and you couldn’t make your appointment?

Thinking I had some newfound respect for her doctor, I asked the question.

WHY did I ask the question?

Yes, it had been renewed over the phone and NOT TO WORRY, she didn’t even have to PAY for it because she had already paid the Annual $200 fee for over the phone prescription renewals.

SO…if you are a medical professional, I expect your blood to be boiling, and if you are not a medical professional, I am hopefully about to enlighten you on something….

There is NO REASON why you should have to pay $200 a YEAR for services you should be EXPECTED to have provided for you.  I mean, granted, family doctors can charge what they want for whatever they want, but SERIOUSLY, we’re in a RECESSION, family doctors make GOOD MONEY.  Not as much as any other area of medicine, but enough.  And we certainly should NOT be SCAMMING Patients into paying ridiculous amounts of money for “perks” like “prescription renewals over the phone”.  It would be like McDonalds charging and extra 50 cents for a smile with the happy meal.

And if you do the calculation (it was 5pm when my mom started me on this rant and I was tired and actually used a CALCULATOR to figure this out so I guarantee the following number to be ACCURATE)  for a family doctor with 1000 patients (which is conservative) their seemingly harmless $200 charge for “uninsured services” will make them $200,000 in revenue for the year.

Which is MORE than most family doctors make in a year for honest-to-goodness-this-is-why-I-went-to-medical-school work.

My suggestion to you if you are of the unlucky few who have a doctor who suggests a contribution to her $200,000 supplemental income :  call someone else…just, maybe, don't ask me to courier it to you...

Selective Learning

Why, why WHY do I have so many WEIRD expressions and WHY does my son keep picking them up and pointing them out to me?  The latest thing I seem to have taught him is expressive heavy breathing.  No, it’s not what you think.  This is completely G rated and involves only lego triumphs and my own silly expressions. 

 

We were downstairs playing with lego today when he finally “got it” and learned that you could pull pieces apart and put them back together.  Which is an important milestone in the life of a 14 month old.  He did it a few times and I rewarded his accomplishments appropriately with some hand clapping and smiling until all of a sudden, after pulling two pieces apart, he looked me in the face, stuck his tongue out and started PANTING at me. 

 

Panting.

 

So, as I did with the sudden arrival of the “snort”, I repeated the action and checked myself.  Each time he victoriously pulled the piece of lego apart I would throw my hands in the air and take a quick gasp in of air – hoping, maybe, to convey shock and excitement?  Who knows, WHY.  But he picked up on it and it is now manifest as an interval of heavy breathing after every fancy lego maneuver he does.

 

This kid will pick up ANYTHING.  Try to teach him “no” and he looks at you like you’re from Mars, but make some weird sound at him and he’s all over it.

 

He hears the word “no” over and over and over again as he touches the stereo, bites our shoulders, lunges at my parents dog, wipes his peanut butter on toast into his hair, runs onto the road, eats dirt…the list goes on and on….and still our son looks at us with a blank expression as we repeat it 3 times and then escort him to time out.  He then throws his usual fit, crying as if to say, ‘NO!!! NOT THE POST!!! I DIDN”T KNOW!! I DON”T UNDERSTAND SIMPLE ONE SYLLABLE WORDS WITH FINGER WAGGING AND HEAD SHAKING!!!!”

 

I tell you, I should have started putting him in time outs while he was in the womb.  Although maybe I should just start making some weird noise instead…then I can say to other mothers, ‘NO we decided against baby sign language and opted for the this tongue clicking African dialect instead– he seems to pick it up quite quickly”

The Sacrificial Trip

I had the experience of flying Porter Air this weekend. It was AMAZING. It was SO AMAZING, in fact, that I have decided to blog about it EVEN THOUGH I had vowed to myself NOT to blog about this weekend in NY for fear of looking like an irresponsible mother and a jetsetter.

So I’ll start by the justification : I went for Rob.

I confess, in the grand scheme of sacrifices I have made for my husband, this was probably the EASIEST to do. Last September, my saintly-non-complaining-husband transitioned effortlessly from his 12 hour a day job as a teacher (interspersed with the occasional 4 month stint at his other 24hours a day job at Camp Kirk each summer) to his new job as a stay at home dad.  And despite what mothers of 2 month olds may think, the job is still tough even if you don’t have to breastfeed or get up in the middleof the night. Rob has been LONG overdue for a vacation and a change of pace.

The first thing that tipped me off to this was his announcement one night in the hot tub that he had decided to fly to MONCTON by HIMSELF to watch the world CURLING championships.

Although that may sound like fun to SOMEONE out there, I took it as a cry for help.

Hence -- the trip to New York.

I know it isn’t Moncton. And I certainly wouldn't promise him any edge-of-your-seat- exhilarating-curling-watching while we were there, but if he was itching for a weekend away, this would have to do.

So off we went to New York.

OH, right, and the SECOND person I did this for was my mother. And father. (Can you see that light flickering in the distance? I think it must be my halo….) My parents have been going through Toby-withdrawal since our visit to Whistler in February (DAMMIT – I wasn’t going to mention THAT trip, EITHER on my blog…seriously, I DO work sometimes and also enjoy being with my son….) But my mother in Grand-son-withdrawal consists of increasingly frequent phone calls and lamenting emails…one of my favourites was a message I got on my answering machine a few weeks ago…

“Hi. (said in a sad drawl)
Its Grandma… (sigh)
Grandpa and I are heading to Loblaws which is Toby’s FAVOURITE store.
(at this point the drawl becomes more a whine..)
We are even going to get a MUFFIN which he LOVES to get at Loblaws...and we wondered if he could come with us…PLEASE mom and dad???”

Yes, of COURSE I’ll drive your grandson down 2 hours through rush hour traffic 45 minutes before bedtime so he can go with you to get a muffin at the one and only Loblaws store at St Clair and Bathurst. (sarcasm)

BUT…if it makes your life easier I WILL go to New York for the weekend with my husband and leave Toby with you for a full 36 hours so you can go to Loblaws and eat muffins to your hearts content ☺ (no sarcasm)

And hence, the trip to New York.  With Porter Airlines.  Which, coming back to my original point, was FANTASTIC.   To summarize - -after the full 5 minutes it took to go through check in and security the man in the uniform with the gun and the bleeper-thing actually SMILED at me, handed me my shoes and pointing me to the lounge and saying, “Fresh coffee to your left. Have a nice day!”

At first I thought it must be some secret code the FBI invented when they have decided to apprehend someone and I tentatively walked “to the left” expecting at any second to be grabbed from behind and strip searched….but found myself instead in a bright cheerful room complete with leather chair, free newspaper, IMAC computers, FREE bottled water, biscotti and of course….oodles and oodles of coffee. I could go on and on….Take my word for it. Go to NY. Leave the kids. Appease the husband. Then come on over after and we’ll compare halos…

Best part of the game...

I was sitting with my parents tonight watching the hockey game. We have to keep reminding my dad what we’re watching, who’s playing and why we’re cheering for whomever we’re cheering for. My dad used to be a scout for the Islanders and a hockey player himself…he also spends his days watching “Sports Centre”, hoping desperately for something exciting to happen. So the Stanley Cup Playoffs isn’t some sort of dementia-torture method -- we are all sitting here for HIM and he really SHOULD be following AND enjoying this.

Apart from his occasional cries of “WHERES THE DOG” it seems like he’s into the game. My mom, occasionally, needs to be reminded what colour each team is wearing, but in general she’s enjoying herself as well.

But the BEST moment came during a commercial.

The usual run of Ikea, Folgers Coffee and other commercials came on. But it was during the 100th showing if the Lotto 649 commercial that my dad came to life. Suddenly he was on the edge of his chair -- totally fascinated and amused…at the end of the commercial, as she unveiled her winning ticket and raced around her couch for the umpteenth time my father BURST into laughter and exclaimed, "Now THATS a good commercial!" and then, sitting back in his chair, puzzled “But what's FUNNY is that they TOTALLY changed it!!!”

Acting as if we hadn’t just seen that very same (UNCHANGED) add 5 times in the last 20 minutes, we chuckled and gave him a “thumbs up sign” him as he want back to watching the game.

“Now…WHO is winning?”

Going with the flow- - the new mantra

Some days it’s just not worth the fight.

ON a day like today, when I spent my lunch hour pronouncing a young patient who was taken far too soon, and the theme of my afternoon was “green discharge from you-know-where” interspersed with “I was in Mexico last year and I coughed once last night OH MY GOD, Doc, do you think I have the SWINE FLU??”, I arrive home and there’s just no fight left in me.

Toby is all about being outside theses days.  Which is great.  But Toby is ALSO all about doing everything HIMSELF.  And not having an afternoon nap.  And not wearing a hat.  Or shoes.  Or anything that takes me more than 10 seconds to get on him.  While throwing a hissy fit.

Meanwhile, Rob (understandably),  is all about “Oh good you’re home - -see you later” and taking off to the backyard.  So I’m left with the I’m-overtired-but-I-want-to-go-outside-but-I’m-overtired-but-I’ll-do-anything-in-my-power-to-go-outside-EXCEPT-if-it-involves-sitting-still-for-any-length-of-time-or-holding-your-hand-or-doing-anything-you-tell-me-to-do.

SO today I tried a new tactic :  I decided to go with the flow.

There were only two rules I enforced : the 30 minutes before bath time he could do WHATEVER he liked outside as long as a) he was wearing his hat and  b) he was neither ON the road nor IN the lake.

It was quite interesting, really.  I learned a few things about my son.  The first is that he has COMPLETELY and UTTERLY indelible feet. Part of my “go with the flow’ attitude involved abandoning the notion of him wearing any clothing- - including shoes.  So with only his bright blue fuzzy buns diaper and his tilly hat on (because DAMMIT I was going to win ONE battle tonight) he RACED past me to experience the great outdoors- - exhibitionist style.  Afraid he was going to break rule #2 I TRIED to race after him but the gravelly, stone covered driveway stopped me and my bare feet dead in my tracks. Ouch.  What are his feet made of, steel?  This kid cries if I wash his face but running barefoot through a big heaping pile of gravel - -no problem.  His newfound freedom took him and his superhero feet right to the tree-line where he chose to pick up rocks and launch them as forcefully as he could- - all 5 cm that his wee arms could throw them.  That lasted all of 25 seconds.   He then barreled past me onto the grass, trampling through the thistles and angry weeds and down the hill (falling numerous times on the way) all the way to dad’s “garden” (is basically a 10x5foot patch of MUD right now).  Head first, he went, into the garden.  Grinning with victory, he then proceeded to EAT the eggshells and coffee grinds that he found in his hair.  Did I forget to mention that Rob had scattered the compost over it earlier in the day?

Still… I went with the flow, as I steered him away from the lake…

Onto the shed where he ignored his own gardening tools and instead, attempted to pick up the GIANT shovel.  Not defeated by it, he resorted to eating the bits of “garden” on the bottom of it before taking off to the hammock.   He then threw his entire muddy-compost-covered-body onto it before promptly falling off the other side.

He then ran UP the hill, falling, again, over and over as he went, until he ran head first into this father.

All 2 feet of  him arrived gleefully, covered in dirt, compost,  and grass stains, sporting only his diaper and his hat.  Oh, and a HUGE grin on his face.  It was, quite possibly, the best 5 minutes of his life.

When Rob looked up at me inquisitively I merely shrugged my shoulders and said,  “Is it bath time yet?”

The Honesty of a Child

I’ve been struggling with my postpartum hair for a while now.   About 3 months after Toby was born I experienced The Great Hormonal Shift during which I suddenly realized that my life was OVER and my hair started to fall out.

Two months later, I realized life wasn’t OVER it was just DIFFERENT, and my hair started growing back in.

Unfortunately, I have been cursed AND blessed with crazy curly hair that has a mind of its own.  And when half of it suddenly decides to grow back in it comes back with a vengeance.   A vengeance that there is only one word to describe : a mullet.

You may not have RECOGNIZED it as such because I have gone to GREAT lengths to disguise it, but if you are one of the “lucky” few who get to see me first thing in the morning or  2 hours after a shower with no aesthetic intervention, you’d see it and be HORRIFIED.  I am not normally vain or much of a time-spender-on-my-looks, but in my attempts to conceal my hair’s act of rebellion, I bought a hair straightener, multiple hair products and more bobby pins than Toby could swallow in a day.

So now my hair is back to semi- normal  (in that it is now express itself in 45 degree angles, not he usual 90 degrees) but I find I’m still lost somewhere in the middle between iron straight hair and insanely curly hair.  My preference is the straight look – then if the mullet rears its ugly head I can use a few bobby pins to tame it.  But this involves time and energy.  The wash and go and lets-just-see-what-my-curls-have-in-store-for-today is MUCH easier, and after some reassurance on the part of my work colleagues and husband, I’ve decided to go with that look for a change of pace.

My first few days at work with my new curly do were better than I thought.  I didn’t get any gasps of horror, and I even got a few compliments.  I was feeling quite good about myself when I got home from work yesterday and Toby had a look at the new me.

Kids are honest.  Even if they’re only 13 months old and unable to talk to you, they have a candid ability to let you know EXACTLY what they’re thinking.  As I sat down on the floor next to him and started to read him a book he looked up at me and GRINNED as if to say, “mom, you look silly”.  Checking to be sure it was OK first, he then tentatively reached his hand out to “touch” the curls. And then, realizing that touching the INSANITY on my head WASN’T going to get him into trouble, he squealed with delight and did what we ALL want to do with curly hair – BOING.

And so I have a new “do” and Toby has a new “game”.  And even if everyone else thinks my hair is CRAZY at least I know I’m getting ONE honest opinion.  And at the VERY least I’ll now get an extra 20 min in my day to play “BOING” with my son and not fight with my hair.