What now? Kindergarten or something?

I type to you now in proof that I survived the Fiskars that possessed my darling precious daughter, and hacked her hair to pieces.  We all survived, actually, and I think I learned a lesson within the demi drama.  That lesson is:  If your daughter cuts off 7" of hair, you will argue over morning hair-brushing NO LONGER.  Nevermoooorrrrre!  It's that easy!  And your relationship will prosper because of it.  We frolic through fields cast in golden-hour glow and she helps me fold laundry and stuff.  I swear.

Before:

 

See?  Everything turned out okay... And besides, it's gone.  We can't get it back.   I'm done being sad crying, she has a feather to help disguise the chopped up bits (we refused to cut her hair up to her ears), and she can get a hairbrush through the rest finally.  Win!

I guess the only natural thing to do now would be to go to Kindergarten.

 

She was so excited, so ready.  Made it easy to drop her off for her first day in Elementaryland... At least if it weren't for my darn stinging nose and soggyish eyeballs.  Just for a minute- I was tough!

Today we wrapped up her first week.  Tomorrow is a flex day for testing, as well as Monday.  She tests on Monday, so she'll only have to go for about 20 minutes in the morning.  I'm happy to have three 4-day weeks with her at this early beginning... We sure do miss our Roo all day long.  I wish every week was four days instead of five :(  

 I'm figuring out what it is to have a single child at home.  I couldn't have known how amazing their little bond is, how much quality time they'd gotten to spend with one another all these years.  I think they're really lucky.  Now that Tulah's at school, Knox has only me.  And I can guarantee Roo was WAY more fun to run around and play with all day!  I will eventually find him a part-time preschool but I sure do want to take this time to be everything I can to him.  We have an opportunity to spend some awesome days together before HE hits the books and the school lunches and the summer vacations- and that will be before we know it.  I'll need to work soon...  I need to reconcile that with how I am feeling about only two more years of precious minutes with my little RhiKnoxerous.  But for now, I am omitting what I can from our days and working on being here, right now.

 I know I can't keep them little forever but it's really hit home this week.  Days go by.  Days where, even up to this end of summer vacation, I was running behind with everything, playing catch-up to chores or errands or this or that.  Even with all of my efforts to slow down and soak soak it up, still in such a hurry.  What did it matter.  And now I don't get it back.  The days, the chopped hair... We don't get that stuff back.  I already feel like I'm remembering it all in bits and pieces.  So I look forward now to all of the fabulous things she has to say about her day at school.  Watch her talking to new friends like a big girl as I drop her off at the cafeteria.  The supersized smooches and hugs and "Knox let GOOOO!"s that happen as we pick up Big Sister at the door every afternoon- stuff she'll be, like, so TOTALLY embarrassed about one day.  Doing workbooks and projects with Knox.  Dates with my little buddy.  Not answering calls, running less errands, involving him more in the little things throughout the day. New School Year's resolutions, maybe.  If she loves it nearly as much as she loves riding those horses, then this will be one of THE greatest experiences of her life.  Ready or not, heeeeeere's the next big chapter!

 

 

haircuts are the devil

Do any of you have experience with... like, your daughters cutting off all of their hair?
A week before Kindergarten starts?
After over a year of trying to grow it out, after you, yourself, cut off too much a summer ago when it was FINALLY getting long?
Two wrongs do not make a right.  I am sick right now.

This was taken just hours ago :( :(

Now I know that it is JUST HAIR.  HAIR.  Hair grows and grows and just grows some more.  Growing is its only job.  But for my Roo, growing is something it has had a hard time doing.

Until this past year.  2013 was a good year for Roo's hair.  It has gotten down to right past her shoulders.  It does little tricks in the form of waves and flips.  For no reason at all, the underside always parades about her shoulders in straight-up ringlets.  It is golden and glisteny and has framed her little fine-featured face in the prettiest way.  It has made her look so sweet and grown-up-ish, for a five year old.  I have been loving it silently so as not to appear all braggy and stuff.  When it's first brushed, it's all poofy and soft and even longer looking.  And now it's gone.

And I'm crying like we've lost limbs or something.




This evening I was getting the kids and Dad a picnic packed so that they could all go fishing as soon as he got home from work.  Roo came into the kitchen several times talking about getting a haircut all of a sudden.  Telling me how short, and that she wanted it cut like her friend Cooper's.  Well, Cooper cut her own hair off, right at the top, like bangs that start at the back of her head.  It was not cool for her mother and they're still recovering.  I should have known her curiosity was piqued when she brought it up so much tonight.  I told her we'd do haircuts after school starts, and it will be so fun.  I also told her it would be fun to keep it long.  What I should have said is that under no circumstances should she lay a finger on a pair of scissors for the next three years of her life, or ELSE.  I should have known she would want to try it herself, but was so absorbed in getting that stupid dinner packed for them before Nick got home that I blew it off.

Funny thing is, that today I have been trying really hard not to get so caught up in my own stuff.  Reminding myself a lot that I DO have time to come see what they have growing in their "aquarium" (a bucket outside that is growing algae and is also a super fascinating under-the-sea mini habitat.) or to help them dig the makings of a volcano in the sandbox.  I didn't stop much to do that stuff and tried hard to tackle the necessary housekeeping during nap (didn't get far) so that I could spend more time paying attention.  I'm bad about it lately.  So much to do.  and I know what you're going to say... "The housework can wait!"  Well it has waited and waited and now it's just plain gross and I don't know where anything is and stuff needs mending and I'm resorting to plasticware because my dishes are disgusting piles of nasty all over my sink and counters and I don't know what's hiding in the dog hair fluffballs under the furniture and in the corners.  I'm pretty sure I've walked into the house a hundred times in the same shoes I just cleaned out the chicken coop in, and that might be dried milk on the floor under the table.  Which table?  The dining table AND the coffee table.  Gross.  And now...  Yeah.  Lesson learned, Whomever Needed Me to Learn That Lesson.  Lesson learned.

Yes she's kissing a cicada, but ignore that for a second and look at the hair that is now gone.  I wasn't ready for this.

So Mister got home, whisked the kids away, and I spent the next three hours deep (a debatable adjective I know...) cleaning a few rooms that have been seriously neglected since I LAST deep cleaned them about three weeks ago, for a whole week, another time when I should have been building volcanoes and scooping algae instead. But I'm not going to gripe and complain that I don't have enough help in the evenings when we could spend 20 or thirty minutes together a night, tidying up or sweeping a floor or loading the dishwasher.  Nope, because I'm happy to do all that while I'm also keeping children alive and supporting emotional and brain development.  While balancing on my head.  I would feel horribly if anyone else around here saw a mess on the floor and picked it up, or even put leftovers away after the dinner I cooked from the groceries I bought, and served on the dishes I washed, was all eaten up and left to spoil on the counter overnight if I wasn't around.   I won't whine about the fact that I was gone five days with the kids, leaving Mr. Boree here to maybe lift a finger or two uninterrupted, but supported him instead in his vegging on the couch and fishing several times.  Not at all upset at the state of the house when we got home after 20 hours in the car alone with my kids... nope, not a problem.  I would have hated if he could have done the dishes even ONCE, or fixed the broken sink, or put in new shower handles or something.  The knee-high weeds are really lovely in the backyard, really.  Nope, if I didn't have SO much mundane busy work to catch up on during the week of daytime hours, I would have countless more minutes to donate to the little blonde heads that beg me to play with them as I insist it'll be just another minute, I promise.

I think that's why I burst tonight.  I exploded a little.  But like, ALL OVER my freshly cleaned slate of a house.
I had power cleaned for three quiet hours, rejoicing the fact that I would have to do nothing of the sort tomorrow and we would play all day on our own time.  I thought about what we would do, starting with a playdate with friends we haven't seen in a month.  I went upstairs to dump the bathroom trash, and what did I find.  A MESS OF GOLDEN LOCKS.  My brain went numb, and then I thought, "Did Mister cut Knox's hair???!"  He's always threatening to, jokingly I think.  But why would he, he was in a mad rush to get fishing while I was in a mad rush to pack their picnic dinner.

TULAH.  TULAH ROO.
Her little voice echoes to me..."Mommy I would just get a haircut JUST like Cooper's, just like she cut hers." and my voice, "Umm hmm let's get a haircut after school starts honey... Do you need to grab a jacket for fishing?  Do you want a water bottle and bananas packed?" and how I should have known.  She'd find a quick second to cut her hair like Cooper's. Not Cooper's style... Cooper's technique.  Just grab some shears and go to town.

I called Mister, who was almost home from fishing.  "Did Tulah cut her hair??????"  Him:  "How should I know, what do you mean?"
Me:  "There's hair in the garbage!!  Like 6" of golden hair!  Did you look at her tonight while you were fishing and notice her hair was funky and HALF MISSING???"
him:  "No but we're almost home, I don't know, she won't answer me."  Of COURSE you didn't notice.  Great.

I was bawling when they got home.  Then Tulah started crying, which was one part me bawling, one part Daddy kept them out like WAY too late, and five parts SHE CUT HER HAIR OFF.  I told her she was in big trouble (I don't know why I said that, I don't threaten and what would I possibly do to punish this??!!!  I was just upset and talking crazy.)

In a wild mess of kids dumping their sand-filled shoes ALL OVER my freshly cleaned/scrubbed/mopped floors and jackets and tears flying all over the place, I lost it and removed myself from the bedtime routine.  I had control over nothing.  So many thoughts and intentions throughout the day, dancing through my head on keeping focus on THEM and not stupid tasks that need attention, places to be, errands to run, so many calls to make... How to ask Mister if he could help out just a teeny sprinkle of a smidge once or twice a week... Business ideas for me (yeah right that's happening.) and plans to help with the horses, other things crowding my mind and the energy it takes sometimes to connect with what's important and focusing on awesome stuff and stuff.  My brain is crazy sometimes and I feel a lot like I'm sorting through it physically, and alone.  Which makes me emotional.  And then I crack.  Like tonight.

I know I'm not crying only over beautiful wisps and locks of golden strands in the garbage.  Self-inflicted wounds to the hair.  I'm not only mourning the fact that I'd pictured her already in her first school picture, her KINDERGARTEN photo with her hair long and full and curled special for that day.  The year or more it took to get this loveliness to where it is.  I'm just sad about all of it.  The busy-ness of the week, one of her last weeks home with me all day.  The intentions I had committed to myself and even to my children OUT LOUD today to be so attentive and available to them right NOW, not in ten minutes.  The steering of my thoughts in a direction of what the daddy of the house DOES do (and he does a lot!!!!), figuring out what I could do better/faster so that I don't have to bug him for help.  Trying to remember that he can't read my mind, but feeling like, 'dang it, I WANT him to!!'.  (And ps:  Sorry Husband, but telling me I need to 'get a grip' tonight during the debacle has now made you Ginny Enemy Number 1, a close tie with those daggone blunt-tipped Fiskars that wreaked carnage all over my girl's head.)  Getting over how horrible the house and yard has felt all week since we got back, and not having the time to get it in order alone.  And now my daughter's hard-working hair is gone, and her school career is about to start, and I can't stop crying about every bit of it all as the hours creep into a.m. territory while I type.  Surely staying up this late will make EVERYTHING feel better in the morning.  I certainly do not need my sleep, no siree.


“Those who do not weep, do not see.” ― Victor Hugo, Les Mis
I have some incredible vision tonight, you guys.