Sticks and Stars

I have fallen so far behind in my JavaScript course. Today I calculated that if I get the lesson I’m currently working on done by Wednesday, and I manage to complete one lesson a week until my deadline (which would be twice to three times as fast as I’ve been completing them), I’ll finish exactly on the last day.

I often appreciate the latitude afforded me by a class-less class, but other times I find that it’s awfully tempting to my slacker nature. The first season of 30 Rock and the second Twilight book have met my required level of intellectual stimulation as of late — which is none. (Mindy, have you read the Twilight books? I think you’d like ‘em if you haven’t — they are very engaging…if entirely lacking in literary value.)

Today I took the boys bowling. We were supposed to go roller skating but when we arrived at the bowling alley/skating rink mutiny occurred and before I knew it I was lacing up bowling shoes. $30 freakin’ dollars for an hour of bowling and we didn’t even make it an hour because let me tell you, two year olds are too young for bowling and are so very easily distracted toward other adventures that are not bowling alley appropriate. Still, my five year old claimed to have fun and I even broke 100.

In other news I’m trying to figure out what to do about the impending birthday of my five year old. His birthday is exactly one month from tomorrow and although I swore all year long I would not have another party for him, not for a few more years at least, now that it’s getting closer my resolve is weakening. He just wants one so bad and he’s recently become enthralled by magic and so I had this crazy idea of having a party at home and hiring a magician, and it turns out that would actually be cheaper than the cheapest of venue rental options I came up with.

The party itself would be fairly low key. Half an hour for the magician, half an hour for a pinata, half an hour for cake, half an hour for presents, get the hell out of my house. The problem is who to invite.

My house is small. Last weekend we had (including us) a total of six adults and seven kids over at once and it was kind of insane. I think that inviting ten kids to the party would really be the limit in terms of my windows not getting broken or something, but there are fifteen kids in his kindergarten class, so wouldn’t it be kind of shitty to invite most of them but not all? And what if, of the ten, several want and/or expect to bring siblings? And what if all the parents want to stay?? I looked into renting a room at our nearby community center, but the total hourly cost plus the staff cost plus the one time rental fee added up to more than the cost of the rest of the party.

I have to decide quickly. The magician is almost all booked up for the weekend I want and I need time to get the invitations out and…buy a pinata I guess.

Thank you all for your comments on my hair. Let me tell you, I cannot believe the number of compliments I’ve gotten on my hair this past week. Some of my coworkers complimented me when they first saw me in the hall and then went so far to email me to tell me again that they loved it. I even got compliments from random (straight) men who usually say little more to me than “good morning” as we mutually fill our water bottles at the water cooler. Really, I think this might just be the Best Hair Ever.

I’ve felt so cute this week and that’s not an often feeling for me. I highly recommend really expensive, semi-radical hair changes as a self-esteem booster.

I got my hair cut and dyed yesterday. It was step one in my plan to start feeling better about my appearance. I’m not sure what step two is, but it might involve buying some clothes. From fancy stores, even.

I went to a fancy salon and paid a lot of money to get a hair style that was not at all what I had in mind. This was what I had in mind, except not blond on top, but there was definitely something lost in translation because I ended up red, red, red all over, with hair that barely touches my shoulders.

It’s okay though. I wasn’t wedded to that photo, it was just one that I found that I thought was cute and offered the two things I wanted: visual interest and some length.

The new color is…shocking. It’s red. It’s really red. In fact, for a while that was all I could say to the stylist because that was all I could see. But I like red, even if I might not have chosen this color for myself, and I don’t think it looks bad with my skin tone. And even if it’s not what I had in mind, it looks SO much better than my mousy brown long straight hair of yesterday.

The old me:

Me in my ship brown glory

Me with red, red, red hair

Three days ago, in the midst of suddsily washing all but one of the pairs of jeans that I own (the other happened to be on my ass), my washer broke. I can’t get to a laundromat until tonight (the past few evenings have been filled with appointments of one kind or another), at which point I might as well wait until Saturday morning when the replacement washer will arrive.

However, in the meantime I would just like to say that a) the coinciding of early potty training and having no means to wash pants and training pants is not very nice, b) nor is my having to delve into more and more eccentric outfits to keep myself from arriving at work naked (yesterday was my interview suit, today will be a gypsy skirt that was part of a long ago costume), c) nor is having a two year throw up all over himself, you, and your bed in the middle of the night, especially when it means you have to dig out bed linens that haven’t been used in a while and thus cause a massive allergy attack, so you find yourself blogging at 12:30am while waiting for the benedryl to kick in.

As an aside though, I have to say that I am a really good vomit-in-the-middle-of-the-night handling parent. Despite the fact that I am really, really not thrilled by the occurrence, I am very good about remaining calm, getting the bed and child stripped down and hosed off, and being comforting to the poor freaked out kid. When I think of routine childhood trauma, throwing up in the middle of the night (or hell, at all, but that’s when it always seemed to happen) was pretty much the worst and so I can somehow manage to dredge up endless empathy and patience and tenderness when my own poor babes are in that situation.

You know, now that I think it, my mom was not always great with the patient tender support routine, but she always came through when it came to midnight vomiting. I can recall countless times of her talking quietly to me and rubbing my back while I sat crying over the toilet.

I’ve sure been missing my mom lately.

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Today my two year old made the giant leap and attended daycare in training pants instead of a diaper. He’s been doing spectacularly around the house (traipsing around with his bare booty), with no accidents even when engaged in the most engaging of activities, but daycare means a full sized toilet instead of his little potty and, well, pants.

But we talked about it extensively yesterday evening, about how he’d be wearing underwear today, and I helped him uneasily steady himself on the big toilet during a trial run this morning. Much to my pleased surprise, his teacher greeted me with the news that he did not have one single accident during the day.

Oh, the grin on my boy’s face! He was so proud of himself for no accidents. Me, I don’t care so much that there were no accidents, I’m just thrilled that he tried something new and intimidating and was so pleased with his own results. He’s so big!!