Full of Pasta

One of my parenting hacks is “put that crab in water.” As in, when they were grumpy babies I put my kids in the bath and now as grumpy grouches on rainy weekends, I take my kids to the pool.

Last weekend I asked Poppy to go get dressed for the pool and as she walked out of her bedroom wearing last summer’s bikini, she cupped her bare stomach in her palms and sighed, “look at my belly.”

I felt every muscle in my body tense and my breath became shallow and I managed to squeak out a (fake) breezy “oh?”

“It’s full of pasta,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“It’s full of pasta!” I replied (my other parenting hack: when I don’t know what to say, I just repeat what they said to buy myself some time. I have yet to be called out on using this strategy.)

“I am going to get so strong!” And with that my six-year-old showed me (yet again) that she knows more than I do.

{image: instagram.com/photographerbrittnicole}

Tolerate It

I was talking to a friend recently about the things we tolerate. Not necessarily significant things but everyday, maybe tiny things that add up to a lot of frustration or discomfort or itchy feelings.

Which is how I ended up in a dressing room full of jeans and self-loathing today. I don’t own a pair of jeans I like. I own some that sorta fit. I own some that really don’t fit but I still insist on sausaging myself into, circulation be damned, because apparently that’s what I’ll tolerate.

I found two pairs of jeans that are not the worst but at least they fit. I’m calling it a win. Next up? Bras.

Big Red

I’ve been feeling a bit blah about 2019. It’s been a hard year for a lot of people. At times I’ve struggled. I’ve watched people I love struggle. It’s been a bit of a drag. I didn’t want to carry that energy into 2020 so I cut off my hair and coloured it red and solved all my problems and now everything is wonderful. The first part is true. The second part is less so. It turns out that making a huge change to my appearance didn’t do anything except change my appearance. Which is both comforting and maddening at the same time.

I think I might be experiencing a midlife unravelling. Brene says it much better than I could ever hope to, so I’ll wait here while you click over and read her words.

Right, so, the unravelling. I think part of what my problem is, is that I love my life and I don’t want to walk away or blow up any part of it. I love my family and my friends and my jobs and Grady’s school and my neighbourhood and my everything. I am an extremely lucky person who enjoys more privilege than she deserves. I know all this and yet, last week I walked into a salon and asked the stylist to cut off six inches of length and colour my hair red. Insert the biggest shrug emoji here.

I think I’m looking for something but I’m not sure what it is just yet. If you’ve figure it out, please let me know.

Hair

Can we talk about something frivolous for a minute? I realize in the grand scheme of things my hair is not exactly a pressing matter but I need hair help. I need suggestions. I need advice. I need someone to tell me what to do.  

This is my hair: 

This is also my grumpy morning face.  

My hair is very fine and is also thinning thanks to kids and cancer and wonky hormones. I haven't had it cut in 8ish? months. The last time I had it coloured was April of 2016. 

I have a hair appointment scheduled for Saturday. Normally I would just show up and my amazing stylist would tell me what she was going to do, she'd do it, I'd love it, end of story. But my amazing stylist has left the hair world (SADNESS) and I'm going to someone new. Cue panic.  

I had virgin hair when I started seeing my old stylist so she was able to do my foils using "high lift" (I don't know anything about hair but this excited her). Do I continue highlighting my hair? Do I go darker? Do I chop it all off and start new? Tell me what to do. 

I wear my hair up in a messy bun pretty much every day. I have a lot of postpartum regrowth creating a fuzzy halo around my face and nape of my neck. The regrowth is about 50% grey because bodies are the worst. My hair is wavy and gets curlier the shorter it gets. The picture above is after I blow dried it without product. If I let my hair air dry it's a frizzy, wavy mess. 

I am not adverse to longer, sideswept bangs but my hair can't do blunt bangs. I cannot do a lot of layers or the frizz gets out of control. I am toying with attempting the Curly Girl Method to see what happens (but I'm also so very tired so probably I'll attempt it in 2019).

So! What should I do with this mop? Bonus points for links and pictures.