Makeovers

Who doesn't love a makeover? Really, we all are kind of obsessed with the instant gratification of someone or something going shab to chic. Sorta like my oven last year. Well, maybe I was the only one excited about that.

Anyway, the girls needed haircuts. Really badly. Like, they looked so shaggy, they were almost neglected. I do NOT want to take them to the salon every other month for a coiffure. I have better things to do with my time -- and patience. (Thank goodness I didn't have boys! They would just have long hair, but not for style reasons.)

So I am officially announcing my subscription to the "Cut-as-much-as-possible-so-we-don't-spend-our-lives-at-the-salon" school of hair styling. And, please don't suggest I cut their hair myself. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially my own children.

You can see for yourself how dramatic the transformations were. I love actually being able to see their faces now, instead of two little mops of blond hair. And they have loved showing of their new 'dos.

The lollipops? Yet another perq.

Souvenirs

L and I had a weekend getaway last weekend and left the kids at our house with a sitter. They had a magnificent time with her -- she was definitely more entertaining than we ever are! And we had ourselves a lovely time as well.

When we checked into the hotel, I noticed our room had a stash of nice hotel letterhead, envelopes, notepaper and a pencil. I tossed it in my bag to bring home to the girls.

I spent time looking in souvenir shops throughout the weekend to find something else to bring home, but nothing spoke to me like all that fancy blank paper.

The day after we got home, I needed to do some tidying in the house. I brought out the souvenirs I had beaten the streets (ha!) to get for them. I spread out the paper on their drawing table, and they immediately started leafing through it all. As I walked away to start my work, I heard Jellybean exclaim, "This is a good present!"

Chalk one up for good ol' Mama. You just have to know your audience.

Mom manners

Every once in a while, a social situation arises that requires more than just average manners: It requires mom manners, that extra level of balancing politeness with assertiveness. Jellybean had a (thankfully short) bout with croup last week, and it might have been avoided had I been willing to trample on some "mom" social graces.

The girls and I were at the library last week for our weekly story time. It was spring break, so it was more crowded than usual. After the story, we sat down at a play table that had these way cool blocks on it. We were doing some serious stacking and building, and another mom and her two older kids came to the table to get in on the action. We happily slid some blocks their way.

Less than a minute passed before the girl, who I would peg at 4 or 5, began to cough. She did not cover her mouth, and in fact, with the table being pretty small, her coughs actually hit Jellybean and me in the face. I thought, "Oh, next time she coughs, she'll remember to cover her mouth." Wrong. More than 20 coughs into it, neither she nor her mom made any mention or effort to cover the girl's mouth. (I wasn't thrilled, and I was even less thrilled that shortly after the other kids' arrival, my girls had about 10 blocks between them of a 62-piece set. But I'm not writing about sharing -- that's for another day.)

I am not a germophobe by nature. But, I am pretty practical and know that coughs that hit you in the face are definitely sending something your way -- infectious or not. I had three choices in the moment, all of which had consequences:

1. Make my girls drop the blocks and walk away to play something else. Consequence: My kids are upset (potentially loudly so -- in the library!) and don't get to play, as a result of someone else's negligence. Next option.

2. Ask the little girl to please cover her mouth. Judging from her verbal ability and dexterity, she was old enough to know better and could effectively do so. Consequence: Asking/ordering someone else's kid to do something is not the most polite thing to do. What else?

3. Ask the mother to have her daughter cover her mouth when she coughs. Consequence: Offending the mom, being rude and telling her how to handle her kids. Could be ugly.

So, what did I do? I did nothing. When we were done playing, I took the girls straight to the bathroom and we washed our hands.

A few nights later, when I was up cradling Jellybean in my arms at 1:30 a.m. while she barked like a seal, I couldn't help but think of that instance. It's no guarantee she caught croup from that little girl, but there was no exposure from anyone we know, including preschool.

From now on in a situation like that, rude shmude. I'm looking out for my kids, and if I make someone mad who I'll never see again, so be it!

Our evenings just got hotter

Just in time for Thanksgiving, we made the final (for now) improvement to our previously outdated kitchen. We replaced our dishwasher and refrigerator this summer, and my plan was to have a new oven by Thanksgiving. That happened -- barely!

Our old oven was very old and it was the cursed drop-in kind that are very hard to find now, and when you do find them, they're ugly. (A funny aside: our first house had a drop-in oven too and we also had to replace it.) We wanted to really make the kitchen look updated, so we did a bunch of legwork to find the right way to do it. Regular ovens are 30" wide; ours was 27", so that would have meant cutting cabinets and losing the use of drawers just to put in a "normal" oven. One handyman made a great suggestion of replacing the current drop-in oven with a wall oven and a separate cooktop. Because of that brilliant idea, we rewarded him with the job of making it work.

And, he did! He finished up on Wednesday, a couple hours before I had to bake my pies (and I tried a new crust recipe with vodka that was fabulous, by the way). Now we have an oven that doesn't burn everything you put in and burners that take much less than 20 minutes to boil water.

Gym time

No, I'm not going to the gym for my own exercise regimen. I'll divulge the secret to my slight weight loss another day.

It was rainy this morning, so I knew I had to find something fun and active for the girls and me. Per the recommendation of a neighbor, we went to a local gymnastics gym playtime. Man, was it fun! The girls were completely exhausted from all the trampolining (or attempted trampolining, in Peanut's case), balancing and swinging -- and I moved quite a bit too, trying to keep track of both of them.

I have wondered since the Olympics how watching gymnastics affected them. Besides learning to "sell" their landings when they fall or jump, I was curious if any of the fanfare and (hopefully) athleticism would stick with them. As it turns out, the fanfare stuck with Jellybean.

On the way to the gym this morning, Jellybean asks me, "Will the audience clap for us at the gym?"

Me: "Um, well, there might not be an audience there today. But I'll clap for you when you do things."

Jellybean: "No, I don't want YOU to clap for me. I want the audience to clap."

Me: "Oh, okay."