Rock Star!

2-23-10

Based on how long yesterday was, it should be at least Thursday by now.

My morning started ok with a short work period and I got home around 7. I was amazed when I got there. Both the boys were sound asleep, as was Ken. The cats and dogs were quite thrilled to see me and all greeted me with gobs of enthusiasm. Seriously, when they do that, I feel so incredibly loved.

Ken got up when I got there and said that we needed to get the boys moving if we were to leave by 8. Apparently, the house tends to be very slow in the morning so an hour was barely enough time to get ready if there was no help given to the youngest residents. I opted to go ahead and assist my probably cranky young ones.

They were both excited to see me and I got them dressed with actually minimal effort on my part and they stayed mostly cheery. Dax was a little upset about having to go to Maria’s when Bobby got to stay, but I explained to him that the doctor’s office was no fun. I had no idea how correct this statement was.

We got to our appt late. It is normally at 8, but lately they have scheduled it later, so we figured we had time. What we had forgotten was that normally we also take the other kid so we don’t have to wait for Maria’s to open. It wasn’t a big deal as the place was empty.

Bobby had a vision test. I guess he is old enough to do some more advanced testing. He did the one where there are a bunch of “E”’s that he had to explain what direction they faced. I think he did pretty well. It didn’t help that while I was covering his one eye, I poked it pretty good.

Our doc came in and went over gobs of stuff. Bobby had to draw a circle, triangle, plus sign, and a square. He had to sing the alphabet and count to 10. He had to identify colors and stand on one foot. He tried to skip, but having never done that before, it was a little awkward. She said his knowledge had already surpassed the 5 year old milestones (which means, damn, Dax is doing phenomenal), and will learn a lot more stuff this year in kindergarten. She did note his slightly slurred speech. I told her about the testing we had done and she had him talk a bit. It was determined that it wasn’t that he had a problem, but more that he just had learned some sounds wrong on certain words. His “th” came out as a “f” sound for words like three. Yet when he says “thank you”, it is super clear. She was quite encouraged about this. So she told us we just need to work on that a bit more. He also should work with a ball point pen some. This was my observation, since when he tried to write his name and draw, it was hard to make it work like a crayon. I also need to talk to Maria about having her have him only write the name Bobby instead of Robert. It confused him at the doctor’s office.

He was perfectly healthy and she was just in awe that he was already 5. She was there the day he was born, so it is one of those crazy milestones. She is a cool doctor and I am glad she knows us all so well. I actually really like her whole team, too.

She went through his chart and at first thought he had to have shots. I was pretty convinced that last time we gave him gobs of shots so that he was clear until he was 6. The whole point being that this way he was ready to enter school. Luckily, I was right. Unfortunately, though, his age did require some blood work. He had to do cholesterol, and some other little things. Nothing serious, but it did mean 3 tubes of blood.

Giving a kid a shot is not easy nor is it fun for anyone. Now, add to this mix a kid who is terrified of needles after having knocked one out of his arm last time, and even managing to bend said needle. Then, add to this equation the fact that the kid took and hour to just do the nasal spray form of the flu shot. I can tell you that taking blood from said kid was so bad, I think they should have just sedated him.

We had 4 of us holding him down. Even with all that, the kid could still kick and scream with the best of them. In his tension, he kept pushing the needle out of his arm, which meant repeated stabs. Ken held his arm down, but his pressure just to keep him from moving could have been the tourniquet. But that kid just wouldn’t let it happen. We tried several needles and several passes at it. Nothing distracted him and nothing worked. He was miserable. The jabs even made Ken a little woozy since as a fellow needle hater, he knew the pain Bobby was going through. I was shocked that I wasn’t crying. I just knew how much I just wanted it to work so that my baby wouldn’t have to keep screaming. It was heartbreaking, but at the same time I was slightly more task oriented on this one.

After a good 40 minutes of pure torture, they gave up. Instead, they decided to farm us out to the local LabCorp to have them give it a whirl. They stressed that we should not try it that day. I didn’t think the warning was necessary since I knew that kids didn’t need to go through that much hell in one day.

We didn’t leave the doc until well after 10. It was insane. He looked beat. I had brought all of the best distractions for the possibility of shots, yet none of them worked, but getting in that car made him finally relax. We asked him if he wanted some breakfast, so we stopped by BK and got him some grub.

Since it was pretty close to my appt time for my hair, we took Ken home, picked up Bobby’s backpack and headed to the hair college. I filled his backpack with some new stuff including some toy from Toy Story (not one of the main characters, but I figured it would work), a fishing game (that ended up failing) and a giant Star Wars book. I also grabbed things like Optimus Prime and another book he liked. Bobby didn’t eat buy maybe a few bites of his breakfast. He said he wasn’t hungry. I now wish I had grabbed some snacks.

The lady who said she could work on my hair was supposed to be there at 11. We waited and waited and it was now 11:45 when I decided to throw in the towel. We started to walk out when the lady at the front asked if I wanted someone else to do it. I agreed since at this point, I had invested all this time already, might as well see it through. Bobby was actually quite excited that we were going to do my hair and not leave. He was in rare form the whole time.

Before I sat down for the hair cut, I had a call at the college. I was surprised, but it turned out to be the lady who was going to do my hair. She was apologizing profusely, explaining to me that she had to take her sister to the hospital. She was super nice, and I was impressed she called. I wasn’t mad at all. These things happen.

The lady who worked on my hair was named Jackie. Her instructor was kind of in charge of the place while I was there. I adored the instructor. Jackie was nice and a perfectionist, which when you think about it, when someone is doing something new to your hair, this is what you want.

We did the cut first. I had explained shoulder length hair with long layers in the back, keep the long bangs. The cut isn’t as short as I had planned, but I am actually kind of glad. It is less heavy now, and it has a good fullness. Also, when I go shorter in a couple months, they told me it was really easy to mostly leave the slightly grown out layers by that point, and just shorten the back part. Awesome!

Now the problem is, my hair was fried. I knew this. For years, I used the same hair color and my hair was happy with me. Once I ran out of my brand, and I started experimenting with things, I turned it into a rat’s nest. It was too dark, uneven and just wrong. So one of the things we needed to do first was to even it all out. This meant covering the grays and making sure the tones were all correct. This process took some time to apply and I had to then sit for 45 minutes while it soaked in. Mind you, we had been there since 11, and it was now going on 1 o’clock. We still had not even started the highlighting process.

My Bobby was amazing. He checked everything out, played with his toys, watched some video on my iTouch and was charming on every level. The other ladies there were so impressed with him. You could see his patience was wearing and he was exhausted. At one point, he was skipping around and he fell. It wasn’t a bad fall, but the embarrassment crying was swift. He ran to me and buried his head in my lap, all the while my head being covered in tin foil. I stroked his head and he almost fell asleep standing with his head in my lap. Poor kid. It was now 3:15. I texted Ken to tell him not only did he need to retrieve Dax, but if he and Dax could come and rescue Bobby.

My hair, in order to add the red parts, needed to have said parts bleached first. It was an interesting process. They put the bleaching agents on the panels of hair and had it sit. Then, she would go back to the parts bleached, rinse it with a spray bottle and then apply the red dye and recover with more foil. I am shocked I couldn’t hear aliens with how much foil I had on my head.

Ken rescued my Bobby boy after he spent 5 hours there. He was truly amazing. Seriously, I can’t stress how amazing he was. He was patient, well behaved and a total sweetheart.

Ken took both the boys to McDonald’s to let them run and I was going to meet them there after. I never made it.

The red part took a while. We had to keep adding some and I got to sit in the hair helmet thing a few times. I ended up chatting with one of the other students who explained to me why the box hair color sucks. They add some kind of metallic components in it, which is why it only takes like 20 minutes to do the color. But the metallic crap also is why it fades faster and causes oodles of problems when you try to do things like highlights or anything different. She pointed out that if I just went to a beauty supply store and bought the color supplies, it would cost me the same and it doesn’t have the crap in it. Plus, I have more colors to choose from. And I could mix them! This is my new plan for any at home care I do.

Jackie ended up even blow drying my hair. Normally that costs extra, but I am sure that as a student, she had just spent 7 hours on my hair and she wasn’t about to let it go out the door wet. She wanted to see what she had accomplished. She and her instructor was quite thrilled, as was the whole place. I like it a lot. I didn’t like how she blow dried it (it was a little Mexican for my taste), but once it started to settle, it looked awesome. And all of this cost me $103. Not bad!! I gave her a $25 tip since she spent so much time and it looks great. I dried it this morning myself and even though it isn’t as flippy, it looks more like what I would do to my hair, which is cool. I feel all rock star! I will be curious how it looks when I don’t blow dry it. I will have some things to play with.

I am pretty sure I will go back to this place. They were all so very nice and patient. I was impressed, really. Plus, they keep the colors I use on file so that next time they don’t have to spend time matching. They know my history. In a couple months when I go shorter, it will probably only cost me the $7.50 cut charge, which rocks. It is one of those places I would think would be perfect for a kids hair cut, too, based on how cheap it is.

When I got home, I was exhausted. My neck hurt from all the leaning back and to the side for long periods of time. Plus, just sitting in a salon chair for that long isn’t exactly great for one’s back or ass. And it was pretty comfy! Ken got me a couple of burgers from McDonalds, which was greatly appreciated since I had not eaten since 10:30 that morning. After we got the kids to bed, I was able to crawl into my own bed at 9. I am pretty sure I passed right out.

At 2 am, though, one of my kids needed me. Luna was whiny so I thought I would just get her some water. She drank some quickly in front of her crate, but then barreled over the water bowl (spilling it in the process) and bolted to the back door. I guess she had to pee. Holy crap, she had to pee. She sat there for like a minute! She then had more water. Then she pooed. Then more water. It took me 10 minutes to get her back in. Damn dog.

This morning, I had desperate kitties and Luna was once again itching to go out. At least the boys and husband slept ok.

I was supposed to do reports this morning, but of course, they didn’t run correctly. That means I have to wait for them to re-run, which might not happen until later today. I hate that since then I can’t do anything on them until then. Not a huge deal, but I do like to get this stuff done.

I now can’t really take any days off for a little bit. Not a big deal since I don’t have any plans. My next anything is next month for a dentist appt, but that is in the afternoon. I think I also have a doc appt, but once again, I made that for the afternoon. Either way, I need to make a point of accruing some of my time over the next couple months. I don’t have plans, but I want to be prepared in case.

Captain EO is back at Disneyland. I wonder if the boys would want to see that. We were planning on stopping by Disneyland on Sunday on our way back from Grammie’s.

Today, I have more work to do at home. I need to do the once over to keep my original progress clean, and then I am planning on working on the bathroom. The one shelf is my fault as it becomes a dumping ground for rejected outfits, and mostly bras. LOL! So I am going to clean all of that off completely, putting stuff where it belongs. Hell, I may just remove it if possible since that may allow us to finally do the flooring in there. The tiling Ken did in the entry way looked harder than what we need to do in the bathroom, so perhaps if I get it all done this afternoon, he can work on the flooring one of the evenings this week. I am telling you, this work is inspiring and I hope that maybe this summer once it is looking really good I will be able to have some BBQ’s and parties at my house. YAY!

I didn’t know if I mentioned this before, but my brother, Doug, is coming to the party. I am very excited about this. We are getting to know one another and I love that he wants to be a part of my life and of the boys’. Why this is so monumental is that our dad will be there, too. Doug has not spoken to dad in many years. I don’t know the full extent as to why Doug had the falling out. I have suspicion based on just talking to both of them, but either way, I am so proud of Doug for doing this. I did tell my dad to behave. He was joking around asking if he could tease him on things like a job or anything like that, and I told him not to dare. My dad will be good to a point, but either way, I am hoping that it is a good first step to a re-newed relationship between them. Doug seems pretty happy these days, which I know has a lot to do with is fiancé, Elizabeth (who is also coming!). I also like to think that he really is loving the idea that he is now an uncle. Who knows, maybe my boys are actually ambassadors of peace and they didn’t even know it! They are my own little George Clooney and Brad Pitt, making steps with their cuteness to bring people together. Awesome!

The more I look at my hair, the more I like it. It is super weird to have it seem so much more thin. It isn’t thin, so much as it just isn’t as heavy. I was told it made me look younger, which is always a good thing on the eve of a birthday for my kid. He may be 5, but maybe I can look young enough that people wonder if I was once a teenager in trouble. LOL!

My week, although is going to be crazy busy, I think will all be worth it come the weekend. I am getting jazzed about the party (still hoping for no rain!!) and looking forward to Sunday to see Grammie and have Don Jose’s. YUM!

The bouncer people said that it works fine in the rain. Maybe I just need to let the kids play in it anyway. LOL!

As a random side note, looking in a mirror for 8 hours is not good for one’s self esteem. You have a lot of time to see all of your flaws, especially when you are not exactly looking your best. I feel a little better this morning, but it was rough.

I was told not to wash my hair much for a while. I am using conditioner since it is a little angry at me. I am looking forward to it feeling a little softer soon. It isn’t gross or anything. Actually, it feels pretty good, but I much prefer the soft.

Work got chaotic. Reports didn’t run, people are in panic mode. It is amazing how quickly things can fall apart.

CRAP! I need to make cupcakes tonight. I have gobs of cake mix, I just don’t know about frosting. I suppose I could make some, but that might be more trouble than it is worth when I can just jet over to the store to pick up some. I only have to make a dozen for Bobby’s daycare party tomorrow.

I think tomorrow we will also take Bobby to Toys R Us so he can get his balloon and crown.

Ok, question. If someone in your office changed their hair pretty drastically (hmm..is this a personal story? LOL!), do you mention it? And if you mention it, do you only mention it if you like it? Like I wonder about the folks who saw me but didn’t mention my new hair. Not saying I am stressing (I have already decided I like it so I am ok with bad words about it), I am more curious. There is no way everyone will like my new hair. My parents, for instance, will undoubtedly criticize it. Of course, I can cut them slack. They created me, so to some degree, crazy dark hair is not what they wanted. Like I worry Ken doesn’t like it. He said he did, but he seemed hesitant. I like the criticism since it allows me to consider it and maybe change it for next time. Or I can ignore it completely. LOL! I just like to know. Maybe someone came up with something I had not considered, you know?

Apparently all my problem customers have a bee in their bonnet this morning and all have decided to be stupid. I am not happy about it.