Mia's First Haircut

Last week, when Mia was running around at Acrosports, I took a good look at her. Her hair was all matted in back, she was covered with scabbed over bug bites from our trip to Mexico and she had stains all over her pants. Could this ragamuffin really be mine?

So I decided that it would be nice if she looked like somebody actually took care of her. She doesn't have much, but a little cleaning up of her hair would help.

So her first haircut.... She was a little skeptical at first, but the knowledge that she'd have a lollipop when it was over helped out a lot.

MILEStones

Here's a weird thing about kids. They change in an instant. You can take them to swim class for a whole year, and they are flailing around in the water and then suddenly one week they are kicking across the pool.

Mia's Aunt Annie gave her a baby doll when she was eight months old. Sorry, Annie, but she has never touched it. She got two more for her first birthday and aside from the occasional wipe of their bottoms hasn't really given them the time of day either. But last weekend we were in Tahoe and she found a baby doll that has been up there for a year or so and suddenly she can't live without it.

And then there's Miles. He loves to do art projects. But inevitably they look the same. He piles on watercolors until they turn a muddy brown. He scribbles until the paper starts to fall apart. Once he did three lines in a circle that he claimed were caterpillars, but nothing that had really resembled, well, anything. Then the other day he was at the table with a magic marker and said "hey Mom, I drew a picture of you." When I looked, I was shocked to see that I had arms. And legs. And feet. Oh yeah, and eyes. And a HUGE nose. And a mouth too! It seemed like overnight that he went from scribbles to actual people.

So the next day I had him draw pictures of his teachers for their birthday cards. And I noticed that he was drawing them upside down (head at the bottom). We always knew he had a different perspective on the world, but this confirmed it for us....

Flubber

It is a cruel joke. As if I wasn't frustrated enough by blue jeans today, Miles came home from preschool with his jeans and t-shirt each covered with a huge spot of flubber. (If you don't know what flubber is, it is kind of like playdough, but more plasticy and really sticky. )

Every week the teachers at school set out some new tactile projects for the kids. This week one of the projects was trays with little plastic dogs and piles of flubber. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but the flubber is brown and looks just like dog shit. And of course the kids have had a blast playing with the dogs in shit. And I'm sure none more so than Miles who occassionally takes the blue bag from my New York Times and pretends to pick up dog poop in our living room.

The teachers sent home a bag of Borax, that I'm supposed to rub into the flubber to get it out before putting his clothes in the washer. (Apparently the washer will cook it in forever). So I just spent half and hour with the Borax, no luck and have been carving at it with a serrated steak knife for the last ten.

If the flubber was only blue or green or purple, I'd just say what the hell, he's growing quickly, he won't wear these clothes much longer. But no, it had to be dog shit brown. Oh well, gotta get back to my scrubbing.

On Fashion

Last summer I wrote about my struggle trying to find new clothes. Well it is still ongoing. Part of the problem is that with only three hours a week - at best - without kids, I don't really have time to shop for myself. But the bigger problem is that I just can't find things that are right for my current lifestyle.

This week I spent my precious three hours shopping for new jeans for myself. I went downtown to the Lucky Jeans store and realized that I will probably never find jeans that I like. At Lucky you can get many different styles of jeans - distressed, with rips, patches, "whiskering" and even with faux oil stains. (If you don't believe me, check out the Lucky web site).

I realize that I'm just a few breaths away from forty, but I hadn't realized before how out of touch I am. I guess I'm officially an old fart. But really, why would I pay more than $70 for jeans that are already worn out? And aren't those "whiskering" lines the kind of fading that you get when your pants are TOO TIGHT? But what really floors me is the oil stains. I teach at my son's preschool - I can generate my own stains, thank you very much.

So I did what I always do when I get frustrated shopping for myself. I went down the street to Old Navy and bought a pile of nice, new, inexpensive, oil-free t-shirts for the kids.