Head Explosions

Today has been a mother of a Friday.  Usually, I look forward to these days.  It's the last, itty-bitty push before Daddy is home for two whole days in a row!  Yay!  But today.  Oh, today.  I feel like I should have woken up weeping.  It's just been that awesome.  I'll briefly digress to tell you that I may just be a tad hormonal.  (I feel like a lot of my blog entries start this way.  I'm detecting a pattern.)  Things haven't returned completely to normal since the baby and I feel like my body is trying really hard to make me have my monthly, but it just can't quite get there, so I'm stuck in this nasty web of perpetual PMS.  Ask my family about it.  They think it's the bees knees.

I slept a thousand times better last night than I did the night before.  Theron was in bed at least an hour and a half before me.  Which is to say, he went to bed at 9:30.  Poor guy needed his beauty sleep.  I woke up from a blissfully, sound sleep to the baby squealing in delight at something Theron said around 7 a.m.  I mention this only to let you know that the day started out on an positive note.  It went downhill from there.  I heard Quinn ("Is it mornin' time?"), then Sully.  Eva usually outsleeps us all.  Lucky little chit. 

Theron finished getting ready for work, deposited the baby back in his bed, and left.  The boys were playing downstairs.  I picked up the baby and began to nurse him, knowing it would only take 10 minutes or so and then I'd go downstairs and get the boys their breakfast.  I was five minutes into nursing when I heard Quinn say, rather sadly, "I want Mommy!  I want Mommy!"  I didn't think much of it.  Thought maybe Sully was harrassing him a little bit.  There was no screaming.  No death-like silence.  No questionable banging or thuds.  I thought things were fine. 

I was so wrong.

How do I put this?  Alright.  I'll just come out with it, since if you're on Facebook you already know the gory details.  SULLY CUT QUINN'S HAIR!!!!

I had cut Theron's hair some time ago and left the scissors I use for such a task on the island.  They were, I thought, buried sufficiently under some papers so far that none of the kids would ever really notice them.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.  This is, sadly, all my fault.

At first, I thought Quinn had done it to himself.  I called my Mom, completely distraught.  I know it's not fair to my other kids, but Quinn is the golden boy and she gets this.  He's adorable and two and, quite literally, golden.  His hair was honey blonde and shiny and fine and it had grown out into a halo around his chubby, fabulous face.  It looked so fetching with his big brown eyes.  What greeted me when I got downstairs was his fabulous face no longer framed by butterscotch bangs, but a scalp with tufts of hair sticking out of it.  He looked like a chemo patient.  I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but he really looked like he was in treatment.  It was awful. 

(Please pardon the awful placement of these pics.  I'm a novice blogger at best.)

What the...?!

See how pretty!  And sweet.  Sweet and pretty.

Doleful.

The finished buzz.  You can still see the thinner patches.  Ugh.

"Please don't cut my hair!"  Sorry, Charlie.

"I'm less than happy about this."

While speaking with Mom it became painfully clear that Quinn could not have done this himself.  In the background I could hear my Dad pointing out that it took a good deal of coordination to cut one's hair and Quinn didn't have it. The damage was only on the top, it was very thorough and there is no way he had the arm length or  skills to have pulled it off himself.  I zeroed in on Sully.

"Did you cut your brother's hair?" I demanded, trying to dial down the fury in my voice.

"No."  Ah.  So innocence is going to be maintained is it?

"Are you telling me the truth?" 

Quieter, "Yes."

I let it go for the moment.  I'd ask again in a few minutes and see what happened then.  He is the most quixotic of all of the kids and I knew as surely as the sun was shining he'd probably change his answer in a few minutes, or thirty seconds.  Take your pick.

Sure enough, the truth came out.  Sigh.

When I first got up this morning, my goal had been to put the dishes away and get the sink clean again.  Now my goal was to buzz heads and try not to cry while doing it.  I told myself it was just hair.  I told myself I was too prideful over Quinn's beauty and this was God giving me the fall I desperately needed.  I told myself it was better one of the boys than Eva.  I still wanted to weep.

Because Sully did it to Quinn, I felt it only fair that they both get shorn.  I couldn't bring myself to cut off all of Quinn's hair.  He really should have had the Mr. Clean treatment because Sully had managed to cut chunks out all the way down to the skin, (Miraculously without cutting into his head!) but I couldn't bring myself to do that to him.  It's still uneven on top, but I'm hoping it's not too noticeable since his hair is nearly the same color as his flesh.  Poor kid.

Sully was not amenable to the trim.  He cried.  Later in the morning, he claimed that he liked it.  Have I mentioned he's wishy-washy?

After shearing the sheep, I had to make a run to the local meat market.  No, seriously.  In keeping with the theme of the day (Wretchedness.), the store was packed.  I have no idea why.  I saw signs on the way in saying something about a Friday the 13th sale and I quickly stuffed any notion of believing in any superstitions waaaaaaay in the back of my already crowded mind. 

Nothing overly bad or new happened while at the store, but an unusual number of folks openly gaped at the mother with four young children and there were a plethora of sympathetic glances and tut-tuts from the old women.  Really?! Is a thirty-something woman and her four children such an oddity these days?  I know so many others like me that I can't believe I draw this much attention when out anymore, but I guess I'm wrong.  I feel like I bring the circus to the store.  Maybe I should have one of the kids carry a hat for the gawkers to throw their coins into.  I'll get Eva to chant in a phony, British accent, "Alms for the poor!  Alms for the poor!"

While we were at the store, the kids, of course, asked for every horrid, naughty, disgusting sweet thing that I don't let them eat anymore and Eva got really belligerent.  I was a bad mom, a nasty mom, a mean mom.  I never let them have anything fun anymore.  Oh, boy.  This was doing wonders for my already fragile grip on mental stability.  I could feel the scales tipping in favor of the loony bin.

We got home.  I whipped up a quicky lunch of hot ham and cheese, open-faced sandwiches on organic, sprouted wheat bread. (Yes, I'm that mom now.)  Quinn and Sully didn't want it warm.  I didn't warm it for them.  They ate it fine.  I heard no dissent from Eva.  She got hers warm and immediately whined, "I didn't want it this way!" 

I lost it.  And in losing it, I felt the pain of my mother all those years before me.  "What do you mean, 'YOU DON'T WANT IT THIS WAY?'" I screeched.  "Why can't you just be thankful I made you lunch?!  Do you want to make you're own food from now on?!  I can just let you fend for yourself! That would be more than fine by me!"  My sails were losing wind by this point.  The energy required to keep going wasn't worth it.  She looked moderately bemused. 

You see, this ENTIRE week, and, I am sad to add, I am NOT exaggerating, she has been ranting and raving about all of the stuff she doesn't have or can't do or can't eat.  It has been discontentment city over here in our little corner of the world.  I don't know how to root this out.  One day this week, when she started going on and on about something she didn't have and wanted, I stopped her, made her sit on the piano bench and told her not to get off of it until she could come over to me and calmly tell me three things she was grateful for.  She whined and moaned that she couldn't think of three things, so I told her that instead of three she better think of five.  (The beatings will continue until morale improves...)  I was in a good mood that day, so my rage monster stayed neatly tucked away.  She finally came up with Quinn, Tyson, Rainbow (her purple, plush unicorn) and two other things I can't remember, but it was a long haul getting there. 

Add this fun to the boys' hair debacle and the fact that the baby has taken to sleeping on his face, which makes me immeasurably nervous, and you've got yourself a trifecta of pure, unadulterated joy.  And I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible. 

Also, not to ruin the perfection of a trifecta, but I was recently reminded by a friend's blog that my lady parts are about to get uber saggy again once the baby is weaned.  I have so much joy awaiting me.  I can hardly stand it.  Again, with the sarcasm.

I'd end on a heartwarming note about how I know God is with me and so all will be well, but I already know that, and I know that you know that I know that, so we'll just leave it at that.  I'm off to pray my head won't explode.