The Long and Short of It

I'm back to my curly headed self.  And my hair has shrunk back up to between my shoulder blades.  Also, the blow drying and flat ironing fried my hair.  It was straw on Monday after I washed it.  I put in a deep conditioner tonight and hopefully by tomorrow, it will be somewhat back to normal.

This is the longest time I've had straight hair and the only time I've let people close to me see it.  Carrol is right that being curly is a key part of my identity.  And it freaked both my husband and my family out.  It really changed the way I look.  Fortunately, I do not often look like Kirstie Alley.  But there were other things.

It made my face look bigger.  My curly hair has always dominated my face and my bone structure has looked too delicate.  But straightening my hair made my bones look bigger (I think) and certainly made me look very bloated.  Yes, the weight gain has something to do with that, but I looked like I put on 10 lbs pre to post straight hair.

Second, I've always wanted long straight hair.  But I have to be honest with you:  straight hair is a pain in the butt.  My hair was everywhere all the time.  With my curly hair, I can just pin back a curl or two and go.  With long hair, I had to deal with whole swaths of it and even then, it kept creeping back to hang in my face.  (Probably trying to hide one of the chins)  I'm sure it's just what I'm used to, but I'm surprised to find that I like my curly self.  I wouldn't mind playing with straight hair a couple of times a year and be curly the rest of the time.

As for my weight gain, thank you all for kindly saying that I was not quite yet the size of Moby Dick.  I am, however, about 4 lbs from what I weighted when I gave birth to Conor.  One might note that at 14w5d, I still have a ways to go and a boatload of weight to gain. I know it's for the babies.  And I do believe with every pound I gain, I am more likely to have healthy, term babies ready to breastfeed and take home from the hospital.  That said, when you see my chins, my enormous butt, or worst of all, the rolls of fat on my back (AHHHHHH!), judge me not.

Or I might eat you.  It could come to that.    

Cousin Itt, Jennifer Aniston, and Kirstie Alley

Yes, indeedy.  What do Cousin Itt, Jennifer Aniston, and Kirstie Alley have in common?  Why, me with straight hair.  

Yesterday, while getting my roots dyed to sort of match my highlights, my junior stylist-in-training suggested that we blow dry my hair straight  Since it wouldn't cost anything more than walking out the door with wet hair, I said sure!  Well, 1 1/2 hours later....

Yes.  It took my junior stylist and 2 other senior stylists One and One-Half Fracking hours to blow my hair straight.  Maybe people with normal hair would feel special in a positive way having 3 stylists working on her hair, but I was feeling most definitely short-bus special because of my ultra curly, ultra fine (who knew?), many haired head.  I will be quite honest that when they started working on the front of my hair, I could barely see through the strands, and the image I saw was much like Cousin Itt above.

But then they finished, and parted it to the side.  And maybe it was because my hair was hanging half in my face and I didn't have my glasses on, but my first thought was "Holy cow!  I look like a fat Jennifer Aniston!!!"  When I was skinny and first moved out here, my students thought I looked a bit like JA, but now, honestly, not so much.  Dave, probably just being kind, does agree that he can see a bit of the chubby Aniston look.

Nonetheless, the resemblence to Jennifer was fleeting at best.  No, every time I look in the mirror now, Kirstie Alley peers back.  And not the thin Kirstie Alley.  The current Kirstie Alley.  With bad makeup.  And Dave agrees.  Yes, there is a Kirstie in there, too.

Ok! Ok!  I know you want a picture.  Look how long my hair is!  Friends in real life just screamed that out loud.  Who knew that curly hair could stretch that far when straight?  It's past my bra straight and curly, it's between my shoulders.  

And ((((sigh)))), what I notice most about this picture is how fat my back is.  I didn't realize how much this weight gain is bothering me until I warned a friend that when she saw me, I was going to look really bloated and I started to cry.  Dave keeps reassuring me that I'm pregnant with twins, not fat.  But when I look in the mirror and count the chins, I feel ugly.  (Which explains my recent binge on cosmetics--as soon as I feel fat, I but something cheap to make me feel pretty.  I have 3 new lipsticks, new mascara, and eye shadow de-creaser).  

I believe from the research that the weight gain will strongly increase my chances of carrying the babies to term. And even if they are early, my weight gain will make them fatter, which is one of the best predictors of premie survival.  

None. The. Less.  I am fat.  I've gained 15 lbs already, which is on the low end of what Dr. Luke recommends.  And I'll likely gain about 30 more lbs.  45 lbs in total is, again, what she recommends that I gain.  Bleah.  Fat.  

Skinny, though, I think this hair style would be cute.  And maybe I really would look like Jennifer Aniston.

Update on Me

I've gotten a lot of grief from blog readers, friends and family that I haven't provided any updates on my hair since my dramatic post a month ago about my hair. The good news is that you were right: the toner did fade after a few vigorous washings and some time in the sun. I no longer lood like Loretta Lynn. And I still don't and never will look like Pamela Anderson...my lips are too thin. Still, I'd be happy for a bit more lightness around my face, more like Sarah Jessica Parker, which I have been told I resemble, especially in her curly days. (it's the hair and her face; we both have that long, horsey face)

In any case, I'm going to wait and go to a bargain option at a local upscale salon and chose their "mantra" option, basically newbie stylists who will die my hair purple, I mean, highlight it the way I want, once I'm past the first trimester.

Ok. So just even writing that makes me start to hyperventiliate. No, there is no miraculous, money saving news I have to post here about being pregnant. I'm on too much medication for any slip up to occur. Instead, I'm freaking out because everything is going to go down next week. They've had me on drugs to stop everything for a month and now they are starting to ramp things up again.

AHHHHHHHHH!

It does freak me out.

Things are looking better this cycle. The antral follicle (resting egg count) count is higher. They have me on my auto-immune drugs now, which the other clinic waited until after retrieval to start. Stims are starting.

It's been a little weird to see how different the protocols are for each clinic. They are not massively different; that is, one clinic isn't calling for new meds while the other sacrifices goats. Still, it's clear that ART is more of an art than a science. I'm hoping we're heading to the "Monet" clinic, which we're hoping is just a little bit more successful than Cassat.

Oh, speaking of art and how my feet are not pretty, I went back to my podiatrist last week because my feet are about to fall off. Despite having my new orthotics, my poor left foot is miserable. I cannot wear much beyond my sneakers (I look so pretty in a dress now! Sassy!!! ) and I have not been able to run because my foot hurts so much.

He is designing new orthotics for me, even dressy ones that might let me wear less hideous shoes. But the goal is for me to have the surgery as soon as I can, after (hopefully) this next pregnancy. It's obvious that it's getting worse and we need to correct it. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'll even be able to walk in a few years time.

OK. Now you're up to date on me from head to toe, which a nice detour around the middle sections. Fingers crossed that everything turns out the way it's supposed to over these next few weeks.

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.