Hack job...

I know Heather's already blogged this, but since my kid still needs a haircut I think I'm entitled to blog too. Long story short, Megan cut Dylan's hair. His beautiful long blonde hair and not in the bestest spot like I thought it was.



It's a little high and too far back to do what I was thinking, but we're going to the hair place today to see what we can do. I think his hair is going to have to be either rockstar or emo with layers. I am shocked to find that on the internet there is absolutely nowhere to look for sample boy cuts. Nowhere. I can see woman on donkey porn in twenty different languages but no ideas for a boy who doesn't know how to tell a girl no.

BTW, the hole count in the shirt was seven. He sat there for a hair slashing and seven slashes to the shirt. Edward Scissorhands, indeed. Heather, I hate to tell you, but this story will live on longer than the sippy cup of 2004...

**updated

We went to the haircut place. The lady was pretty clueless and not into chic boy haircuts. Actually she was quite incompetent, but not a lot of places do little boys down in the city. She left one side longer than the other and it required more cutting (which goes from bad to worse). I know no one gets it about his hair, people were always just telling us to cut it or whatever, but I loved how unique and extraordary he was. Now he has to be extraordinary with a very average, normal cut. It was so hard to grow the stuff past his ears that I can't imagine we'll try again. I know it's dramatic of me, but it really is like the saddest thing for me. I imagine this is what it feels like when a kid cuts off a girl's entire ponytail. Not trying to rub it in, I swear, I'm just really sad. Esp when we left and he tried to run his hands through it and he goes "My hair?"

So we go from this...



to this...



Ignore that little extra bit on the side, I swear the lady did a worse job than Megan, but I got that cleaned up...

Needing a weekend from my weekend...

As many I am sure are as well...it seems like some weekends are just go, go and Easter weekend was no exception. Not that we do a thing to acknowledge the Christian reason for the season (good ol JC) or the pagan roots (a Saxon fertility celebration in honor of the Goddess Eastre whose sacred animal was a hare, you know we weren't looking for babies). No, our respects were paid to the figures Reese's, Hershey's and Brach's.

Saturday we did a little takeout BBQ and easter egg hiding out back with Karen and Paul. I really loved all the things she "hid" for him all over - eggs filled with everything from puzzles, alpha magnets and treats, cars, juice boxes, fruit, rubber duckies, chalk, bubbles, stickers and on and on. Really adorable, here are a couple pics:







He didn't hunt for long, he finally sat with the puzzle and chalk and made his grandma go find the eggs in the yard with more pieces. Very adorable, very fun. The next day was where the go, go, go was. We got up and did our little Easter thing with Dylan's basket. He had already seen the little Thomas toys and had wrangled them away, but I did put them back in the basket for a pic...that basket happens to be the one I grew up with. My mom seemed surprised, but I tend to be both nostalgic and cheap so it works well



Then it was off to the Hix's for the Cumberland brunch...really it was just Grandma Cumberland and the families of two of her daughters plus us, and we were glad they let us join them for a bit. The kids especially loved the playdohing, Danica and Dylan have quite a future in Playdoh Tea Parties





And then finally it was on to my mom's and Jim's... we decided not to really celebrate with the big dinner and such, so we went over, did a basket and then hit the park and Chuy's Mexican. About the park, let me say this. Our intention was to go to Memorial Park (gigantic park for those non-Houstonians, has a gigantic track, tennis clubs, volleyball courts, multiple playgrounds, pool, so on). It turns out though that over Easter weekend, the park becomes a living area a la Grapes of Wrath. If I had to take a guess, this would be mostly apartment dwellers or those with small homes, so they take the extended family here and set up picnic tents, sleeping tents, bbq pits and pinatas. They were everywhere, I could hardly see the actual playground through the swarms. Jason and I vetoed that and found a quieter park where, while pretty busy, was mostly peaceful. I say mostly because there was a huge family party there. Since we didn't go into the actual playground they didn't bother us except for this:



Yup, the idiots not only bought chicks for one day's pleasure, but they bought ones dyed different colors. Animal abuse at its best. Anyways, here are a couple pics from hanging with Mom and Jim, hope you had a nice day and that you can catch some zzz's...















and finally, the shot where Dylan too has had enough and can't lift his head from Daddy's shoulder...

Go 'way, lead paint!

Dylan has recently mastered the use of the popular phrases "Go 'way" and "stop," and frankly he's kind of becoming an a-hole. Thanks Dylan, but if I wanted to be rejected that often, I'd set up a match.com account with an un-Photoshopped picture. Monday he tells me to go away because he wants to play with his trains in his room in peace. Clearly, my aura doesn't jive with that of Thomas and Percy. I go to the living room and do my own thang (aka Paradise Hotel 2 TiVo'd from the ever classy Fox Reality channel and fruit dip) and after awhile I no longer hear the sounds of him playing (which would be trains hitting the floor, hitting the wall, him squealing because he can't find 9...) I walk in and he is face down on the floor not moving.

Is he dead? Did he eat a stop sign? Did the lead paint from the trains finally seep into his brain? I shake him and he whines -- he has simply fallen asleep on the floor among his friends. Could've been a sweet moment if this wasn't in my head:

My day in hell and other interesting bits

You know, I really try to give Dylan all kinds of fun experiences. Sometimes that ends in massive amounts of joy and laughter like his trip to the Children's Museum with Kolby earlier this week and sometimes it ends in thoughts of suicide like our trip with the Turners to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I thought I was being clever going during the week when the chaos would be minimal and the trip would be gumdrops and happiness. Wrong.

First of all, let's talk about the millions of field trippers. Every school district in the city appears to reserve their one field trip for this event which frankly is a waste. The exhibit for kids involves watching a cow be miked, an astroturf covered slanted surface intended to be a "hill" for kids to "roll down" (aka get astro burn on their elbows and then land either into a crowd of boot covered feet or at the above mentioned cow milking), lines of smelly animals that aren't intended to be touched and then finally the sales area of Chevy pickups and John Deere tractors. Maybe next year they could actually go somewhere where they could learn something other than the sticker price of a tractor? So as you walk, you are bombarded by these endless lines of children in the same color shirt. They are all over the place, covering the surface of the Reliant Arena like ants on an ant hill that just had the shizz kicked out of it. Wanted them all to just go away, though I was run up and hugged by one who turned out to be MIL's neighbor. I liked that.

So far I've pointed out that the place sucked and that the kids sucked but one kid in particular mega sucked -- Dylan. He wasn't in the mood to be told what to do and where to go, he wasn't in the mood to hang out in crowds and he wasn't in the mood to pretend to like the rodeo. So he cried a lot outloud and I cried a lot inside. He pet two cows and was tickled by that, enjoyed sitting on every foot massager in the place, loved sitting on all the tractors, and wanted the person dressed as a cow to adopt him and take him home and every second in between was pure hell. Here are some pics, but to top the experience off, the lighting sucks so bad in there that every pic sucks too.









Someone please email me a link to this post next year when I consider going to the rodeo again, k?

Vote or die, drink Diet Coke and die...

If you're in Texas or Ohio (or even a little bitty state with primaries today!) please make sure to go vote! Jason and I hit the early voting a couple weeks ago to avoid the lines (and forgetting/making excuses). It's funny watching all the media coverage all this time and it was like a storm when they (Clinton/Obama) finally had their eyes on Texas. Suddenly the mail was full of stuff (Obama mailed to me, Clinton mailed to my mom), the phones were ringing (Obama's wife called my mom on a recording) and the radio channels were full of youngins talking about how Obama understands our generation wants change, Clinton chatting about her past in Texas of doing door-to-door and even enlisting Ugly Betty's America Ferrara to tell the latino voters that Clinton's always supported their peeps, etc. And like it was never here, it will be back to commericals about car dealers and Bikini Beach dance parties tomorrow. I don't care who you vote for, but please get out and do it!!

I mentioned a couple posts ago about my journey to be both healthier and stop killing the environment so much. My major effort is starting with...Diet Coke. As I was having my last sips, I thought about what a strange drink it is, a chemical concoction really. Carbonated water, caramel coloring, aspertame, phosphoric acid, potassium benzoate...the ingredient list makes me think the first time I sprout a tumor, I should just go ahead and direct my attention at the Coca Cola Corporation... and as I drank it and felt that fizz burning down my throat (which I really like, it peps me up, but it's kinda creepy too) I wondered how that drink ever came to be. Anyways, my last one was around 6 pm Sunday and while I was really sleepy all day yesterday, today I got hit with the headache that fellow addicts like Amy Winehouse can relate to. I popped some caffeine pills (will taper that off soonly) so I could get something done today. Feeling better now, hurray. Getting rid of Diet Coke is dual purpose too because we create sooooo many plastic bottles with that habit. While we do recycle, that hardly lets us off scot free. The plan is to get water delivered so that we aren't trading one bad habit for another (soda bottles for water bottles), but the 24 month commitment at Sparklettes was realer than I was ready for.

And now a picture to brighten your day...here's Dylan at Will's charity walk for mitochondrial research blowing on a pinwheel. The walk was downtown in a historical park where they moved a bunch of historical houses like Sam Houston's, etc. Really neat area, Jason and I used to hang out and ride bikes down there when we lived down the street (okay, like once). Anyways, Dylan's officially being mistaken for a girl, but we like his hair and don't want to cut it. Not that it stops anyone from giving their two cents (can't wait til we start making real mistakes, then we'll really hear it!) but maybe I could dye it black and use more product and he could just look like Pete Wentz...anyway, enjoy my androgynous cutie...