Daring Young Mom

Dear Madam,
I regret to inform you that since you received no formal invitation to reside in this body, you are officially being asked to evacuate the premises immediately. Big-O’s evacuation was not an open invitation for any old squatter to take up residence. We were all having a great time with our darling baby boy when you burst through the door, wreaking havoc.

You certainly made yourself right at home, annoying everyone and bossing us all around. We’ve all missed sleep because of your incessant chatter filled with tales of horror and woe. I don’t believe a word you say and yet I cannot tune you out or convince my body that you spout nothing but lies.

At first, I thought I was strong enough to fight you on my own, to wrestle you to the ground and force you to leave. But you would not back down. After weeks of struggling with no sleep, no food, and no hope or peace, I knew you had beaten me and I gave up. Against the sincerest desires of my nature, I purchased and used the ammunition necessary to banish you to the smallest, darkest corner of my mind, a place where you are scarcely noticeable. However, sometimes, when I least expect it, you emerge unscathed and ready to do battle again. These are the times when I hate you the most.

You are a liar and a thief, a sadist and a leech. You’re a bully who cares about no one and seeks to destroy everyone you come in contact with. Little-C is afraid of you. You make her nervous, uneasy and insecure. Dan has even missed work to stay home and protect me from you.

I do appreciate the work you’ve done to help me lose weight, although I wish you’d gone about it some other way. And I am grateful for the increased compassion I now have for anyone who has been visited in the past by you or any of your hateful relatives.

However, I have decided that I am done with you. I most forcefully request that you leave at once so I can dispose of my ammunition and continue my life in relative peace (okay, who am I kidding? I have 2 children under the age of 3).

Sincerely,
-Kathryn Daring

Owner and Proprietor of aforementioned body

P.S. I know you stole the first 5 weeks of my son’s life from me. Please return it on your way out.

***On a lighter note, please click on my open letter link to read some that are a lot more fun than the one I just posted****

My parents are in Houston and living in the bull’s eye (choose forecast path button) of the projected path of Hurricane Rita. They are in an area that has not been forced to evacuate so they think they’ll ride out the storm. I’m pretty sure everything will turn out okay but in light of the devastation with Katrina I think the more prayers offered in behalf of the Gulf Coast residents, the better.

It’s happened before and it freaked me out then but I swore that in the aftermath of future pregnancies I would not be worried by the fact that I seem to be going bald. During pregnancy my hair grows thick and lush and beautiful and I feel great pride, as though I have anything to do with it. It’s like when your child sleeps through the night for the first time or your husband cleans up after your latest cooking fiasco without being asked. You feel proud of them but in a strange way proud of yourself for your connection to them. I feel proud of myself for my ability to grow such long strong and beautiful hair while I’m pregnant. I brush it a lot and let it sway behind me as I walk — that is when it’s not pulled back in a greasy ponytail because I feel like total hud. Anyway, at about 3 months post partum, it all starts falling out.

At first, it’s just a piece here and there and after a couple of weeks, handfuls of hair come out every time I wash it, brush it or run my fingers through it. I imagine it getting amazingly thin and I totally freak out. Really it’s just going back to normal but I become paranoid that it won’t stop falling out. This time for sure I must be going bald.

In a fit of drama two nights ago, I told my husband I was going to cut it all short. Men who are going bald should shave their heads rather than trying to comb it over or leave it clinging to their heads in long thin scraggly patches. I decided to do the same, not shave it exactly but not let it keep growing long and thin so that there were only three hairs together for the last couple of inches of my formerly glorious mane. He told me he’d support me if I wanted to cut it but also reminded me that we both like it better when I leave it long. I started to get all mad, “What is it with guys and long hair? It seems that most would rather have a girl with scraggly, nappy, split-ended long hair, than a healthy well-maintained short cut.”

This has always been a pet-peeve of mine. But I know he’s right about me in particular. My face is so round that I always regret it when I cut my hair short and immediately start growing it out again. The summer of “melon-head” comes to mind. It’s too painful so I won’t post a picture here. Anyway, I decide not to cut off what few piece remain on my head. Instead, following the advice of the latest beauty section of Parenting Magazine, I decide that because its fall I should dye my hair 2 shades darker than my natural color. I do not understand the reasoning behind this advice but do not question it, partly because these people are “experts” of some kind and say I should do it and partly because how fun is it to dye your hair in your bathtub every once in a while? Um…very…especially if you’re a freshman in college. And besides, it should be pretty cheap because I won’t need to buy much dye since I hardly have any hair left.

So I go to the grocery store and stand in front of rows of temporary same-ish looking brown dye (okay I’m a wimp who can’t commit to any beauty item long term. Don’t expect to see me with tattooed lipstick anytime soon.) The colors all look pretty much the same to me and since I’m much prettier than any of the models on the boxes, I figure I can make any of them work. As I’m about to pick up one of the “nut” series of browns, a store employee with the aforementioned 3 strands of remaining hair comes up to me and says, “Oh no. That shade’s too dark for you. I use —–nut. It’s much nicer.” Her hairs are sort of a non-descript brownish color and she looks nothing like the girls on the boxes so I’m skeptical about whether or not I can trust her opinion but she does work at the QFC so I pick the —nut color in between her —nut and my original —nut choice. I take it home. I dye my hair, my bathtub, my sink, my hands and part of a bar of face soap a too dark color of brown. I don’t actually know if it’s too dark (What do they mean, two shades? What constitutes a shade? They should include a chart or something) but it’s all totally one color, no highlights or variations which I conclude makes me look like a witch.

It’s a month until Halloween and the dye is supposed to wash out after 28 washings so I’ve calculated that if I only shower every 3 or 4 days for the next month it will still be a witchy enough color to work well for my costume if there’s any of it left. If it continues to thin out at this rate, I can always go for the relief-society-one-inch-perm a half a century earlier than I had originally planned and dress up for Halloween as a grandma. Or maybe I should just get pregnant again and let my chia-pet hormones take over. So many options, so little hair.

So, we finally seem to be getting out of the “Lenny” stage of Little-C’s infatuation with Big-O.
She has loved him since before he was born, oh with such a great love it cannot be expressed in words. Picture if Steinbeck had written Of Mice and Men but instead of being a mentally handicapped adult armed with brute strength, Lenny was a two-year-old girl armed with fleece blankets and hundreds of stuffed animals. I would hear a muffled cry from the living room where I would find a quivering mound of fleece and cuddly animals. Beneath that mound would emanate the piteous wails of the infant boy, growing fainter by the minute. As I would release him from his fluffy torture chamber, Little-C would cling to my arm and beg me to leave him alone. “He LIKES IT! HE LIKES IT! He’s laughing. He’s SO happy.” How could a person be so tender and yet so hazardous? In these moments I would think of Lenny and the poor pretty bunnies and vow not to leave the two of them unattended….. ever. However recent evidence shows that she may be growing out of this stage and we rejoice. She still loves him, but not quite so hard.

A couple of nights ago we attended a classical community concert with both kids, featuring a French horn quartet and some extremely talented soprano opera soloists. I know, we are borderline insane, but the whole thing did not turn out too badly. We kept Little-C occupied with crayons, bits of garbage, a plastic tiger and surprisingly at times the actual music. Big-O mostly wiggled and spit, but not ON anyone. During one particularly “resounding” (substitute “shrill” if you’re not an opera fan) run by the soprano, Little-C jumped so violently I thought she was going into a convulsion. These runs continued at irregular intervals, each time catching Little-C by surprise, causing her to shake and open her eyes bigger than I’d ever seen them. Finally at the highest and most alarming crescendo, Little-C jumped up and said in a loud whisper, “Mommy, can I PLEASE go pee in the potty – RIGHT NOW?” This is the first time in months SHE has actually asked ME if she could go. Maybe we should play more opera at home, accompanied by the gentle sound of running water.

Yesterday was one of those sublime days where you just adore your kids and love being a mom, even when things go wrong, even when they act their age, you just love them and feel blessed to have them around.

Because after Little-C got bored during her 2-hour nap, Dan had found THIS:

My mom had mentioned the use of duct tape in the past when I told her about this little problem we’d been having but I thought Little-C would just stop doing it when I explained how “yucky” it was. Guess not.

Big-O of course thought the whole thing was hilarious.