Dress Code for All Saint's Day

This morning we had a Halloween hangover. The house, once pristine from 4 days of nothing electronic to distract from creating a sense of order and a desperate need to find something to do when cards, cookies and books had lost their luster in the 48 hours sans power, now was littered with wings and hats and socks and masks, wrappers and mummy wrap, traces of pumpkin goo and all the goodie bag rejects from parties on October 31st.   It took three times to wake each child for All Saint's Day...a mass uniform day.   It seemed cruel to ask this of children drunk from chocolate the night before, not to mention the parents, also somewhat punchy from snatching the occasional snickers or almond joy.  

So we were running late.  My ten year old always helps with the littles. I change them. She dresses her littlest sister.  Normally, I lay out the outfit. Today I had not.  "I'll get it." she said and she was off.  My beloved daughter is the most helpful kind heart I've ever met.  She also loves fashion that favors the Barbie/sparkle/Disney/24-7 rainbow style.  I admittedly felt a bit apprehensive when she joyfully volunteered, but agreed.  

My 20 month old was thrilled with the ensemble.  A silver tu-tu complimented the striped pink and white leggings, red socks and strawberry fruit patterned onesie in a clownish sort of way.  If it had been Halloween, I'd have added a red rubber nose and voila, instant Circus performer.  But it is All Saint's day.  My son is reading at the mass.  I'm fully planning on attending. 

"Doesn't she look great?" My daughter asks for a compliment.
Her sister twirls and beams.
"She loves it!" I admit. "Time to load the car."

We're off for the morning air craft carrier launch of schools, five backpacks, five lunch bags, five coats, five kids, two toddlers strapped in and all by 7:35 if we want to make it.  We get there. We unload. I discover we forgot one coat and one lunch box, (two different kids).  Not to worry, we'll be back for the All Saint's Mass. 

Back home before 8:20, the bus arrives to take her older brother away for his school and now it is just her and me.  The clown princess and I spend our morning organizing the house. I fret about how she looks but tell myself, if I change her, I will hear about it and I don't want to hurt her sister's heart.  I tell myself, she will wear what she will wear.  It will be fine, she's 20 months. You aren't going there to show off your daughter, you're going there to be at the mass. 

But the petty part of me wishes the outfit were at the very least, coordinated.

Fortunately my littlest girl is 20 months. Being 20 months, she solves the problem for me as only a 20 month old can do.  Without going into any unnecessary detail, she needed a complete change 30 minutes before leaving for mass.  From top to bottom. I'm not making it up.  Nothing was spared. 

Arriving at the church, my older daughter found me and smiled. She pointed at her sister, "Why did you change her outfit?"  "It got messy." I explained.  Satisfied, she took her baby sister off my hands to show her off.   I'm so glad she loves her sister. The touch of vanity in me is glad for the new dress too. My daughter then takes off her own sparkly headband and adds it to her sister's head.  "Now she looks perfect." she explains.

And she does.  

7 Quick Takes Friday

1.  My hair

See yesterday's post for the story. I only have one picture so far.  My son snapped it with his cell phone.  Here you go folks. 

I'll stop complaining.  It's just a shock to me, not what I've been used to, and I hadn't planned to go this dark. 

2.  Anna Maria Finally has a tooth! 

She's 8 months and we're finally getting one.  Given how fussy she was for this one, I'm not looking forward to the incoming remaining 19 or so we will have to endure.   But I love her smile.  I love the way her upper lip is a bit crooked when she grins.  She's jamming her whole five fingers in her mouth right now so I predict a shower of teeth in the upcoming weeks. 

Obigatory Cute Baby Picture

Last days of the toothless grin.


3.  In the News Today...things happened, people are hurting, our side is right, if you think otherwise, you're a dope.  That is all.

I'm starting to think about giving up being informed because it's hard to sift through all the stuff right, left, radical, commonsense, opinion, fact on any topic, even the weather.   What is hyperbole in this day and age?  What is truth?  For a time, I tried reading opposite ends of the spectrum but who has that kind of mental energy?  For a time, I cherry picked from real clear politics, the Washington post and the radio.  But how do I know if I'm just seeking my comfort zone and ignoring reality if I only read my favorites?  And how do I keep from poisoning my own spirit while trying to stay informed? We have plenty of voices with earnest conviction, cheerleaders for their side, but how many of them are of both Truth and Charity?   

4.  The Credit Card Diet

Last month, my son started gaining the Freshman 15, he got as far as 7.  Then, we saw the bill.  A lot of dining at McDonald's and California Pizza will do that. After paying his tab, my son voluntarily gave up his credit card.  He's lost five pounds.  Wondering if I should follow suit. 

5. The Food Network has Ruined Me

Ah, the irony of juxtapositioning blurbs. 

When I watch TV, I watch those cooking shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef and Food Truck Race and Diners Drive Ins and Dives and Good Eats.  These days, I get to see about two a week. But even at that regulated pace, I now cannot fully enjoy myself at a restaurant. The other day, I went to a Mexican food place we don't normally haunt.  I found my brain saying, "This salsa has a wonderful chunkiness and flavor but it lacks that third element that makes it a salsa; there's no heat or bite to this, it's like a gazpatso with cumin and cilantro.  If it were a soup, it would be rocking but as a salsa, it falls flat."  Cue dramatic music while the chef hangs her head in shame.   I'm left wondering, "How did Bobby Flay and Robert Irvine get in my brain and how do I get them out?" Hint to Sherry: Give up eating out.

6.  What I'm Trying to Read

Discovering Chesterton after 40 is probably best.  Just starting on his autobiography.  My problem with reading is when I get to the end of the day, I start to read and I'm instantly down for the count.  No insomnia here.  But it does mean finishing a book is s.....l....o....w....g...o...i...n...g. I have to hope G.K. is amused because I've been at this three days.  I'm on page 3.

7. Halloween

Being immature at heart, I love this holiday.  Right now, I have to create Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy, yes I've got three My Little Ponies at my house.  I'll post pictures when they're finished.
I don't know what the boys are going to be, but that's my project for this weekend.   What are you doing for October 31st?

Try Dyed For Mother's Day

It began with a Mother's Day card. 

My seven year old son had created a booklet at school.  Each page had a fill in the blank.  My mom likes to...My mom doesn't like to...with the answers having been supplied by each individual first grader.  The impressions a child has of their parents is often widely at odds with reality or at least the impression I'm trying to give in this world. 

For instance, according to John, my favorite food is crabs.  This despite the fact that I obsess over chocolate and diet coke daily and haven't eaten any side walkers in about a year.  My only explantion was a conversation I had two weeks ago with my two oldest daughters about how much fun it was to make gumbo growing up. They were recalling their last trip to the beach where they caught a mess of blue crabs and did the same with my folks. 

Apparently my favorite vacation spot is Texas but the place I loathe is Pennsylvania.*  Again, I could piece together the reasoning of my son; he knows I love to visit my family and the beach on the gulf coast.  He also knows family lore. Years back before he was even born, we had a bad experience once in Amish country at one of those theme hotels designed to be fun for kids, a hotel composed entirely of train cars.   We tried to be good sports but the place was so dusty and our bed so awful, my husband made an emergency trip to Walmart to purchase new sheets and comforters so we could sleep. He stayed up all night in the recliner watching March madness and we didn't stay the second of the mandatory two night reservation. To this date, while we know there are plenty of fun things to do in our neighboring state, we remain gun shy about an overnight stay; with the money quote being, "This would be pretty if it weren't Pennsylvania."  The Hotel which shall not be named, still evokes shivers at the memory and a case of the imaginary itchies. 

But the page that drew the most response was this:  My mom's hair color is.....What is this, a commercial for L'Oreal?  My son had written grey.   He wrote grey.  My hair is black.  Well alright, it's black with grey highlights and an skunk stripe in the front.  I looked in the mirror.  The standard pony tail masked how grey I'd become, bundling all the brown and black.The skunk stripe had encroached out of it's acceptable territory and I now had a large swath that his seven year old eyes had spotted correctly.  I couldn't be grey.  The little bit of vanity left in this mother of ten body railed against the idea of having my son think I had grey hair.  Off to the hairdresser I went.

I have discovered the limits of my vanity.  Two hours.  It takes three hours to get one's hair colored. After 120 minutes, I was done and tired of reading magazines that told me how to lose weight, budget, organize, think like a man, raise perfect sons, grill, improve my insurance I.Q. and where to eat in Bangladesh.  I'd said a rosary.  I'd written a list of things to do for the next week. I'd fretted about not being home and wondered if they'd started dinner.  I'd wished I'd gone shopping for sneakers instead or gone for a walk.  I'd considered getting into an email fight with the editor of a travel magazine for a snide comments about Houston not having much beyond steak until recently.  Clearly they didn't know Houston worth a darn.  Then  I realized, she'd missed out on some good mexican tamales and good seafood and fantsized briefly about Pappadeaux's soft shell crabs.. then I thought oh well, more for me.  Whoa! Maybe my son knew more about me than I'd thought.  

Finally sprung from the beautician's chair, I drove home and showed off my newly not grey hair.  He didn't really notice.  I looked at my mother's day car again.  The page after the hair said, "My eyes are....green," only they're not. 

Next week, I'm going to the eye doctor. My oldest son told me to get contacts if I need correction, so maybe when I go to the visit, I'll fix it so the other son's observations are more accurate. 

*I like Pennsylvania.  We've taken trips and have friends in Pennsylvania. I'm just never going to a theme hotel that has a mandatory two night stay again unless the family needs new bedding and even then, I think I'll just buy the sheets and skip the possible nightmare vacation spot.

Silver Fox

For years I've toyed with the idea of dying my hair.

I've never done it.

Part of the reason I haven't up to now is, I've been pregnant or nursing for much of the past decade during which my hair has progressed from straight brown black to having a skunk stripe to having a white swath across the top. Whenever I've mentioned the idea, my husband has said something sweet like, "I've loved you in all your seasons." or "You've earned every one of those." which has melted me into laughing at my momentary vanity.

However, the amount of grey alarmed me when I viewed a recent photo of myself. As if to seal the deal, my six year old in all her tactful joy said to me, "Mommy, your hair looks really old."

I bought a loving care Clariol can that day.

Opening it in the bathroom, I looked at the happy woman on the box. I worried I would stain the sink. I worried I would stain my clothes. I worried I would look like one of those lego people with a cap of solid black hair on my head. I read the directions. I was losing my nerve. I reread the directions. More nerve lost. Now I taught my kids always to read the instructions three times before starting anything new, so I followed my own advice. The can remained unopened in my medicine cabinet.

But a friend has offered (she does this all the time), to teach me the secret ways of hair color on Tuesday.

I figure, if I screw up, I'll look good at least for Halloween.