Sleep and Curly Hair

((Insert comments about how busy I've been here))

OK!  Now that we have my excuses over, I'm going to talk about something that I've wanted to talk about, but have been too intimidated to post here on the blog as it is "public".  SLEEP.  Or How We Are Still Co-Sleeping With (and bfing) The Twins.  You should leave now if this topic annoys you or it might bug you.  (For those of you who don't have children or are way past this stage, sleep and how one's family accomplishes it appears to a controversial subject for modern parents)

But for everyone else who wants to know what it's like for a working mother to AP-ish with twins, keep reading.

So, umm, yeah. We are still co-sleeping.  Generally, we are really just co-sleeping with Bridget, because Christopher, THANK OUR LUCKY STARS, sleeps all night long in his crib.  Indeed, he is the ONLY child who regularly sleeps through the night. Conor usually gets up around 1:30 and either climbs in bed with us and he and Dave go sleep in the guest room, should our bed be over-crowded.

Again, if this bothers or annoys you, stop reading now!  This is our family's choice!  Your mileage may vary!

Bridget usually starts off in our bed because it's rare that the twins actually go to sleep at the same time at night and one tends to be rocking and rolling while the other one is nodding off.  We've also found it's easier to land Bridget in our bed than in her crib.  We're lazy parents and we like to do things the easy way, what can I say.

Fortunately, Bridget is the least likely of our sleep bunnies to want to be the middle part of an "H" or an "N" while we sleep. If you co-sleep, you know that I mean they sleep directly across (H) or diagonally across (N) the bed.  Bridget is more of a || sleeper meaning she is right up against either Dave or me.

Really, it's not bad, mostly because she is such a cuddler and I am, too.  (Break in story:  Christopher actually kissed me in his sleep one night!  In the middle of the night, he sat up, grabbed my face, kissed it, and went right back to sleep.  Have to say that was pretty dang special!)  But back to Bridget.  The main problem is when she's not all the way asleep and she shouts out (literally!): I WANT BOOBY!  BOOBY!

This is 1) where we think we should have taught them a different word and 2) where you should leave if your face is turning red.  We've actually made great progress on her not needing so much booby in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately, part of that transition is that she likes to sleep with her hand down my shirt.  Given the choice. . .

Well, let's just say that I sometimes lie in bed with my arms crossed over my chest until she's in a deeper sleep and I can push her over to Dave.  (And Dave would tell you if he had his own blog that she will go fishing down his shirt, too, which is a fine Howdy Doo way to wake up!)

So there.  The story arc for this post is somewhat (completely!) lacking, but that's what you get for reading the blog of a working mother of three.

We plan on bfing and co-sleeping until we stop.  You should take bets on when that will be, because we have no idea.

As for the curly hair, there are two sub topics.  One, I've started following the advice in the Curly Girl Handbook and my hair looks gorgeous, if I do say so myself.  Second, Conor was bullied yesterday on the bus because of his curly hair.  Some older kid made fun of it and told him that he was going to pull it all out so that Conor couldn't have curly hair anymore.

In all of Conor's life, I have never seen him so genuinely upset.  He's sensitive and cries, but this was different. He had real, deep hurt and real, grieving tears.  I had honestly thought the south had gotten past its issues with curly hair and that we had inoculated Conor to curl problems by keeping it long and celebrating it  his whole life.

So he and I took a walk away from everyone else at the bus stop so we could talk about it.  And I told him what I think is true:  this kid is jealous of Conor's curly hair.  Conor first denied that but I don't think he knew what jealous meant.  So then I asked him, "Conor, how many people have told you how beautiful your hair is?"  Conor thought for a moment and realized that he ALWAYS gets compliments on his hair wherever we go.  Strangers stop and stare at his hair and say "Don't ever cut that; it's beautiful!"  Then I said, "How many times do you think anyone has ever stopped this boy and told him how beautiful his hair his?" "Never," Conor said with some confidence.  We talked a bit more and moved on.

Last night, when Dave spoke to Conor about the incident, Conor told him that Mommy told him the boy was just jealous of his hair and it was all ok.

I'm hoping that this all ends up with a pat on my back for handling this situation well and preparing us for bigger issues.  I did email the head of busing for his school, who said he will address the issue.  I actually just responded with a hopefully subtle suggestion to handle this sensitively so that the problem does not escalate.

The problems change when they get older and the problems get more serious.  I have had several mom mentors tell me this about parenting.  I believe it's true.  But it's also true that these parents and their children are sleeping through the night and they don't remember what it's like to be tired all the time, either.

HA!  I did make a link back in the curls story back to the sleep story!  And that's the best I can do in this overly long post.

((Imagine here:  promises about how it's not going to be so long before I post again))

Hmmmmm, Something About You Seems Different......

I made a donation to Locks of Love on Saturday.

So, uh, yeah. I got a hair cut. In fact, I had quite a lot of my hair cut off this weekend. It's the shortest it's been in 20 years. And I'm glad I had enough to donate to Locks of Love, although, as Dave pointed out, what child with cancer really wants a wig of curly gray hair? How desperate must they be, indeed. But hopefully they can use it for something or someone.

It looks ok. It looked better at the salon when they were able to put all the product in it. I have most of the product, but I still can't do my hair as well as they can. (And if you're a curly girl and you say that, you know you've found the salon you'll never leave)

It is just a wee bit too short. I wanted it to be shoulder length and it's about 2 inchs above my shoulder. It was well below my bra strap before hand. It's been down to my booty before.

Honestly, I really don't think it looks all that bad. But here at work, few people have commented that they notice I've had it cut, much less that it looks good. You know that is the discrete version of "My GOD! You look like Snape with a perm!!!" (a thought I had while she was cutting my hair)

There are quite a few weird things about having short hair again.

1) I don't need to put my hair in a pony tail holder when I run. I can just be free when I'm slowing slogging all over my neighborhood. I think that actually, I'll end up wearing a bandana though because it sort of freaks me out, and if I position the bandana correctly on my head, I can hold my new MP3 earbuds in my overly sweaty and freakishly large ears.

2) I am going to use a hell of a lot less product. Already, I am using a third of the conditioner and styling goop than I used to use. I Will Save Money on my hair. As cheap as I am, I should have thought of that earlier.

3) It dries so quickly! My hair would sometimes not be dry by the time I was leaving from work. Now it's dry before I leave FOR work. Wow!

4) My husband and I can Breathe! While we Sleep!!! One thing about being Cousin Itt is that if I didn't go to sleep with my hair in a pony tail holder, one of us was bound to roll under my hair and be unable to breathe at some point in the evening. Now, we're both able to sleep in the freedom of knowing we won't suffocate under my hair.

So, there!!! I've cut my hair! It's SHORT! Not too short. But SHORT compared to how I've been for a long, long time.

ETA:
Female Colleague: OH MY GOD! Your hair looks great! It's fantastic!!
Male Colleauge: Oh. Yeah. I thought I noticed something different.

Conor's First Real Haircut

We did it about a month ago. Here we are at the start.

This is about the middle, when we could see how long his hair is!

This is at that awkward stage of curly hair cutting.

And here is is at the end, just a little worse for the wear.

I have to say that like getting my hair cut, it looked much cuter after coming home and letting us wash and "style" it. And last night, I had to snip a few curls off the sides because they were too long and giving him a Bozo-the-clown-poofs-over-his-ears appearance.

I'm not sure how long we'll let it go, or even if at some point we'll cut it very, very short to see what happens. As curly as it is, it's not all that thick, so I don't know what would happen if we did cut it short. But we'll leave it like this for now. I do think we'll try a short one this summer, although the boy loves his curls. I think he would be sad to see them go. And me?! I might just sob.