Lament on a Haircut

Dear Clara,

Your hair has been so long for.... well.... so long, that I was pretty surprised when you decided that you wanted to cut a bunch of it off. You were so excited about having a new look that I didn't even stop to think that maybe I should convince you to ease into it...to just take off a couple of inches at a time, and see how you liked it. As I sat there watching in the salon, and the hairdresser went in to make that first big snip, part of me wanted to leap out of the chair and stop her...to tell her that she shouldn't go that short. But, a split second later, it was too late. And you were happy at first. But I kind of knew that you would be filled with regret when we got home. I knew, because Honeybun, I have been there so, so many times. Coming home from a haircut and staring in the mirror wanting to cry. Wishing I could turn back the clock. Wishing I had just stayed home that day. So, I am so, so sorry that you feel sad about your hair. I feel like I should have done something to prevent the way you are feeling right now. But I'm not kidding when I say that you'll have a ponytail again in a few months. You will. And I am certainly 100% sincere when I say that you are absolutely beautiful, inside AND out, whether you look like Rapunzel or like Daddy, or anything in between.

And, if you'll permit me to steal a few words from your beloved KKIQ :)
Pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel like you're less than perfect.
Pretty pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you're nothing, you're perfect to me.

Love,
Mummy

Sleepy

Some dark and rainy mornings have made it hard to get out of bed lately. Why would you want to leave this kind of cozy?

Belated Blogiversary!

Oh my gosh, how did my third blogiversary (Jan. 28) slip by without me even noticing? Happy belated to me! On to year four!

Note to self: Do not brew yourself a pot of coffee in the evening, and then proceed to drink it (because you intend to stay up late working), and then change your mind and decide you'd rather sleep. Caffeine is not a mind reader.

Delicious

Our house really does look like a pack of Lifesavers, and then some. It's fantastic. I love standing in spots where three or more wall colors are visible. Like here, looking from the office through the hall into Trevi's room:
Today we added a few little details to finish up the new green room. Trev got a bookshelf for displaying his Lego, a new cork board, a recycling bin, and a (long overdue) reading light up in his loft.
This weekend was productive, fun, relaxing, coffeelicious, and just plain lovely. I'll fall asleep with a smile on my face.

Sand and Surf

It wasn't exactly balmy today, but the sun came out, so we soaked it up for a few hours at the beach. The kids scrambled up and down sand cliffs, and numbed their feet in the ocean.
Four-day weekends are good for the soul.

Green!

Trev's walls have been the dingiest in the whole house ever since we moved in. I really, really wish I had taken a true "Before" picture, when his room had reached it's all-time messy record, and every bin and shelf was overflowing. I filled four bags yesterday with stuff to be passed along, and today I made the place look all shiny and new.We let Trevi choose his colors (although we vetoed black), and I must admit that I was nervous about the greens he picked. I like them, though. Cheerful and leafy. The jungly colors also led to the decision to leave his bed its natural wood color, since it looked "like trees in the rainforest".

P.S. After reminiscing about my maternity painting clothes a couple of weeks ago, I decided to dig around and see if I still had them shoved away somewhere. The shirt is definitely gone, but, look! I found the pants!By the way, they are big, baggy pajama bottoms, and NO, I did not wear them up over my belly back in the day. They were low riders. I do not actually fit into maternity clothes at the moment. :)

Furlough Friday

I seriously don't mind being forced to take an unpaid day. In fact, I think that shortening the school year by a week or two would be a far better way to cut costs than increasing class size to 32. Give me 25 kids for 170 days and we can accomplish a lot more than 32 kids in 180 days.
But, let me just focus on the moment. On this glorious furlough day, it is pouring rain, and the kids have opened a spa in the living room. We are all taking turns being customers, and I am gutting Trevor's room to prepare for painting!Chad's pedicures are always half price. :)

Things I love about these crazy people - Part Two

These kids are driven by the desire and determination to create.

For instance, Trev was smitten with this AT AT Walker at a friend's house....
So he came home and constructed his own:
Clara spent hours crafting a box for her valentines....
She didn't want just any box....it had to be a "Lovebug":
And this jackhammer (complete with sound effects) and protective headset are, in my opinion, pure genius:

Things I love about these crazy people - Part One

There is a lot of laughter in this house.
Often, it's Chad cracking the kids up, or family laughter about some kid shenanigans. Sometimes, it's Clara and Trevor in hysterics because one of them has inserted a bodily function word into a Mad Lib, or performed some slapstick routine at the kitchen table. We've got tons of conspiratorial sibling laughter, and eye-rolling parental laughter. We all laugh at the cats almost daily. We laugh at ridiculous things that no one else outside our little circle of four would find even remotely funny. And how lucky am I that Chad still laughs at the dumbest of my jokes after all these years? Like when someone on Antiques Roadshow is gesticulating a bit too ferociously around a priceless Tiffany lamp, and I make a crashing noise. It's not funny at all, right? But he laughs.

The Madison Gang

These amazing people have played a part in the creation of thousands of lifelong learners. About twelve years ago, when I was new to California, I had the good fortune of being hired to work at a school with this group (and a bunch of other fabulous folks who couldn't join us today). Man, we were quite a team. The collaboration, creativity, and enthusiasm were awe-inspiring. That school was buzzing with energy, and we were all given the flexibility and freedom to let the needs of our students guide instruction. We were trusted to do what was best for kids. Those were the days.

It was so nice to spend the afternoon catching up with everyone and daydreaming about opening up a school together...a place that encourages kids to think, to imagine, to wonder. Will education in California ever get back to that?

Ahhhhh

I'm sorry, all of you snowed-in people. I feel for you. But I can't not express my appreciation for this day, for warm sunshine, for flip-flops in February.

On a Roll

Pardon the painting pun, but we really, truly are on a roll with the painting – Clara's room just a couple of weeks ago, and today the office.

We have lived with this nasty baby blue room (yucko) since we moved in four years ago. It was actually the cats who convinced us to finally get around to painting the room. They let us know that we should tear out the very absorbent carpet, and replace it with laminate flooring. And in order to remove carpet, you have to take out all of the furniture, so it's impossible to pass up the opportunity to paint.

Since Chad is the main occupant of the office, he got to pick the color. He went with a deep blue that is really close to what we used in two of the bedrooms in our old house. It's a great color – really happy and lively. As I worked, it took me back to the weekends I spent painting just before Trevor was born. I wish I still had that maternity shirt, decorated with the colors of our old house. I was enormous, waddling up and down the ladder, and I probably shouldn't have been breathing in all of those fumes, but I knew that our house would stay beige forever if I didn't get it done before baby #2 arrived.

My current painting shirt is starting to get pretty colorful, too (a perfect complement to these fancy old PJ bottoms). Don't I look snazzy? Painting a room with a concrete slab floor is completely awesome, by the way. No stressing about drips. No tripping over tarps. I loved it.I'm a really good painter. Wish I knew how to install laminate flooring. Also wish I knew how to keep cats from peeing all over the place.