Princess Hair Tutorial

If you have a toddler, you may have an aspiring princess on your hands.  My little monkin brought me a shoelace and a hair barrette one day and asked me to make her "Rapunzel hair."  So I dutifully clipped the shoelace to her short, sparse hair and sent her on her merry way.  I did that same thing approximately 2,487 times that day because, let's be honest, it wasn't a very good plan.  So that evening, I combed through Pinterest looking for tutorials on how to make "Rapunzel hair."  Turns out, it's super easy, which is good because there were later requests for Elsa, Anna, Belle, and Ariel hair.  Here is the long and the short of it (see what I did there?)...

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

1 skein of yarn (will make 2+ wigs)
Scissors
Dining chairs or other "edge" that you can wrap yarn around
Almost no crafting skill whatsoever

1.  Figure out how long your hair will need to be.  For Rapunzel hair, you'll want strands that will be 9 or 10 feet long.  For Elsa hair, you'll want strands that will be 7-ish feet long.  For Anna hair, 6-ish feet; and for Belle and Ariel, 4 or 5 feet.  Then set a couple of dining chairs far enough apart so that you can wrap your yarn around the ends of the chair backs to produce the appropriate length of strands.  Here, I'm making Elsa hair, so from one end of the chair backs to the other is approximately 3.5 feet (but just eyeball it).  You want to wrap the yarn around 60 times, producing 60 strands in the end.  (I only had enough yarn on hand to produce 42 strands, so your braids will end up being fuller than the braids in this tutorial.)

If you're making Anna hair, you'll want to make 50 loops with the orange yarn and 10 loops with the platinum yarn. 

2.  Once you have your 60 strands, cut a small piece of yarn and tie it around one end of your loops.  This will be the center of your strands.  (I used purple yarn here just so you can see what I've done, but you will want to use matching yarn.)

3.  On the opposite end of your loops, cut down the center.  You now have 60 strands of "hair" ready to braid!

4.  Measure 15" from the center of your strands and tie off your strands, again using matching yarn.  (So, in this photo, the center is marked by that top bow.  The bottom bow is where I have tied it off at 15".)

5.  Untie that original center bow and begin braiding your strands from the 15" mark toward the original center.  For a toddler/preschooler, you'll want this braid to be 19" or 20", or you could just measure your child's head circumference and make this braid whatever size you need it to be.  Once you have your 20" (or whatever measurement) braided, temporarily tie it off and join the 2 ends of your braided section to see whether the unbraided tails are even.  If one tail is longer than the other, you can easily adjust it by unbraiding the shorter end a little and braiding the longer end a little.  So say one tail is 2" longer than the other.  You would want to unbraid an inch on the shorter end and braid an inch more on the longer end (or just play around with it until it's right).  Once you have your tails evened out, tie off the 2 ends of the braided section with matching yarn.

6.  Now tie the braided ends together to form a loop.  This will become the halo of your princess hair.  I prefer to do this with a bow instead of a knot so that you can adjust the size of the halo later if necessary.

7.  If you're creating Elsa or Rapunzel hair, you can just braid the tails into one long braid.  Tie it off, and trim the ends of the tail to make it even.  For Elsa, I then sew little snowflakes onto the braid every so many inches.  For Rapunzel, I tuck little flowers into the braid every so many inches (and then my child pulls them out, but whatever).

If you're creating Anna hair, you just separate the tails into 2 sections and braid each section.  Tie the braids off and the trim the tails.   

If you're creating Belle hair, you tie the tails into a loose knot at the base of the halo loop.  Trim the ends to make it look nice.

8.  If you're creating Ariel hair, you can either just trim the tail up to make it even, or your can take little sections of the tail and feed it back through sections of the braided halo to sort of spread the hair out across the back of your child's head.  To do that, take 8 or 10 strands from the outer edge of the tail on either side and feed them back through the third braid from the bow of the halo.  Then take 8 or 10 strands from the remaining tail and feed them back through the second braid from the bow.  Then take 8 or 10 strands from the remaining tail and feed them back through the first braid from the bow.  Repeat on the other side of the bow. 

The Sinking Shrine

Last week, my dad had the last two of the huge, 54-year-old pine trees cut down from the backyard of my parents' house.  My mom was heartbroken.  Two others had broken off halfway down the trunks in a fast-moving summer storm three years ago.  One of the remaining trees had actually been broken near the top in that same storm, but my mom couldn't bear to lose all the trees (or the shade they provided to her gazebo) at once, so my dad acquiesced and let her keep the last two.  But at 79, my dad knew that they didn't need the stress of those giant pines looming on the back of their property, so he had them removed.

Tucked away in the midst of those trees stood a tree house on stilts.  It, too, is very old--at least 43 years old or more.  Now, it sticks out like a sore thumb in the new openness of the back of the yard; and it's more clear now than ever that it's in disrepair.  One of the stilts has sunk so far into the ground that the front porch of the tree house is pulling away from the house.  The steps are slippery with green, moss-like mildew.  The lattice surrounding the porch is broken.  No one really even plays in it anymore because, frankly, it's not safe.

The man who cut down the trees around it offered to take it off my parents' hands.  "My daughter would love it," he said.  No doubt, if it was taken down and repaired, his little girl would love it.  My dad replied, "Let me think about it."  The next day, he called the guy and said, "We're not ready to part with it just yet."

You see, that sinking eyesore on the back of my parents' property is one of the most powerful reminders of my brother that my parents have left.  My dad and Mike built that tree house together when Mike was about 10 years old.  It doesn't hold a purpose anymore, but it holds memories.  So my very practical mother and my very safety-conscious father can't let it go.

*   *   *   *   *   *

When I was young, the tree house had a little dutch door in the front and a little plexiglass window in the back.  Both latched with a simple wood block closure.  Above the window was a small shelf with toys and books and treasures that were found on various and sundry adventures in the neighborhood or on the county farm that ran behind our house.  The walls were painted purple, and there was a scrap of yellow shag carpet on the floor.  Sitting along one wall was a small, plastic play kitchen with cardboard food that we would "cook" for my mom for lunch every once in a while.

My sister and my cousins and I spent untold hours playing in that tree house.

One year, a neighbor got a little play house with a bed in it, and we asked my dad to build us a little bed in the tree house.  He obliged.  He also replaced the door with a one-piece door with a plexiglass window and a proper latch.  My sister and I decided we wanted to "camp out" in the tree house after that, but we were afraid to sleep up there alone, so Mikey said he would sleep up there with us.  Of course, he was probably 25 or 27 by then, and he had a life and all, so he wasn't home when our bed time rolled around.  He called and told us that he would be home as soon as possible and that we should go on out to the tree house to wait for him.  So we went out to the tree house, locked the door from the inside with the little hook that my dad had installed and fell asleep before Mike arrived.  When he got there, naturally, he couldn't get in, so he knocked on the door.  We were caught off guard and scared to death at this sleep-fuzzy face lit by the camp lantern in the corner peering through the window, but after he told us about a dozen times that, "It's just me--unlock the door," we finally came to our senses and let him in.  The poor guy went to lay down on the floor to sleep, but because of the bed we'd asked our dad to install, there wasn't enough room for him to stretch out, so he had to sleep with his head under the bed.  I can't even remember if we lasted through the night.  I'm guessing we didn't.  I'm sure I got "cold" (code for scared).  It doesn't really matter.  It was a perfectly awesome comedy of errors experience.

*   *   *   *   *   *

I wasn't even alive when my dad and Mike built that tree house; but even from the time I was a child, when I looked at it, I thought about how they had built it together.  As I got a little older, I remember thinking what a cool project that must have been for Mike.  I could imagine how much fun Mike had working side by side with my dad as my dad (a shop teacher in his younger days) explained each step to him.  That 10-year-old boy must have felt like they had built a castle when it was finished.

As Mike got older, they went on to build an attic bedroom over the garage, an addition to the back of the house, a new barn, and a gazebo.  Yes, there are many memories of Mike scattered around my parents' property to take the place of that old dilapidated tree house, and I'm sure my dad treasures them all.  Still, I'm equally sure that none of those memories match the memory of that first project.

My mom asked me what I thought about it all--what should they do about the tree house?  Apparently, she had asked my three older sisters at a recent family gathering, but no one really expressed an opinion one way or the other.  I'm sure they were thinking what I was thinking:  What's the right answer?  I don't want them to worry about that old tree house collapsing in a heap or someone getting hurt on it, but I don't want them to tear it down.  So I kind of hemmed and hawed for a moment until my mom hinted that she and Dad didn't want to tear it down either by mentioning that Dad thought he might be able to fix it.  At that point, I said, "You know, what does it matter if it does just sink into the ground?  What does that hurt?  If you want to try to fix it, fix it.  If not, just leave it there."   I needn't have said anything, though.  They were already decided.  She was just looking for someone to tell her what she wanted to hear.

It's a sinking shrine.  It won't withstand the test of time, but they won't accelerate it's destruction.  There are just too many memories. 

One Day (But on Repeat)

The alarm goes off at 6:40, but I just can't do it, so I hit the snooze.  When it goes off again at 6:49, I'm still not ready to get out of bed, so I lay there, trying to go back to sleep but mind buzzing with thoughts of all the reasons why I should have gotten up nine minutes ago.  I pick up my phone and see a string of texts from my girlfriends (also toddler mommies), who have already been up for over an hour.  Two of them have even gotten in a morning run.  I feel unaccomplished and lazy.  I respond to the texts and then check my Facebook.  At 7:15, I finally peel myself off the bed, knowing that I should have done that 20 minutes ago.

I make my way down the hall to the kids' bathroom, treading carefully so as not to inadvertently wake the beasties. (It's leg-shaving day and our stall shower doesn't allow me the room I need to shave my legs before the spray washes away the suds).  I wash my hair, wash my body, and shave my legs as quickly as I can--there's no taking time to just soak the heat into my tired body--but it still ends up taking 20 minutes.  I poke my head out the door and around the corner to make sure my 3-year-old hasn't been roused by the running water. She hasn't; praise Jesus!

I tiptoe back down the hall and throw on some basic makeup.  It's just enough so that I don't frighten small children and skittish dogs when I leave the house.  I'm just about to start drying my hair when I hear, "Mommy?" from down the hall.  I hightail it to MK's room because we (and by "we," I mean me) are trying to potty train, and I need to get her on the potty before she pees in her diaper.  Although, "we" did great last week, "we" are on Day 3 of not-so-great.  MK's diaper is wet.  I give her the old, "We have to pee-pee on the potty speech," and she nods along and says, "OK, Mom," but I know we'll revisit this situation at least 4 more times today.  I get her dressed and then shuttle her down the hall to my room.

I situate MK on the bed and turn on a cartoon so that I can get back to drying my hair and getting dressed.  I admonish her to not wake up her little sister until I'm ready to get MJ out of bed.  By now, my hair is starting to air dry, so I grab my hair dryer and quickly try to salvage my part and tame the little unintentional bangs that have grown out from postpartum hair loss.  Ten minutes later, I click off the hair dryer and hear the giggles and screeches of my girls through the monitor.  MK has woken up MJ.

I go down to the baby's room and get her dressed.  It's not an easy task.  She's so excited to see her big sister that she's kicking wildly and screeching.  I try to get MK to go back to my room, but that just causes MJ to crane her head around to look for her.  After I wrestle my chubby little kicking cherub into her clothes, I go back to my room to get dressed myself.  I haven't done laundry in eight days, so that's not an easy task. 

Once I'm (finally) dressed, I look at the clock.  It's 8:15 now.  Panic washes over me.  I have exactly 30 minutes to feed these kids and myself before I start putting on shoes and coats and packing them into the car.

We head downstairs, and, because I'm Mother of the Year, I pop some Eggo mini pancakes in the microwave.  I pour milk for the girls while breakfast "cooks."  I tear MJ's pancakes into little bites while blowing on MK's pancakes so they aren't too hot to eat.  Once everyone else has their breakfast, I pour myself a bowl of cereal and pop a K-cup in the Keurig.  Just as I finish snarfing down my Cheerios, MK announces that she's finished and needs down from the table.  I glance over and notice that MJ is still eating.  That's good and bad:  It's now 8:30, and I still need to give her a bottle of milk, but maybe I'll have time to drink my coffee while it's still relatively hot.  It takes me about two minutes to get MK situated, grab my coffee, and settle back into my chair before MJ signals that she's just hoovered the last of her pancakes and is ready for her milk.  So I put down my coffee and grab the bottle.  She drinks about two ounces of it before pushing it away.  Of course, now it's 8:45 because, ohmigawd, those were the slowest two ounces of milk in recorded history.  So I put my coffee back down and start getting everyone into shoes and coats.

I cross the threshold from the kitchen to the garage exactly 7 times:  MJ into the car, MK into the car, grab my coat and purse...and then go back in because I almost forgot MK's school bag.  Now it's 8:55.  Thank God we only live three minutes from the preschool!

We get to school, and I have to get both kids out of the car and walk them inside.  It's cold and windy, so I'm trying to hurry without dragging MK behind me.  I walk MK into her classroom and take off her coat and hang up it and her bag, all while balancing MJ on my hip.  Then I sneak out and run back out to the car.

By the way, do I even need to mention what a pain in the ass it is to wrangle kids into and out of car seats?  It's 9:07, and I've already had to do it five times today!

MJ and I drive over to Target.  I need diapers, applesauce pouches, and a new pack of binkies because we are down to two.  (The other two are in Purgatory with half of our socks and my coupon and loyalty card pouch.)  I end up with diapers, applesauce pouches, Hershey Kisses, shampoo, a Disney MagiClip princess doll (potty training incentive), and Valentine-making supplies.  After checking out, I trudge back out to the car, buckle MJ back into her seat, and put all the bags in the trunk.  I get back in the car and start to pull out of the parking spot when MJ starts crying and I remember that I didn't get binkies.  Damn it!  But I am not dragging her back in there right now.  I'll just have to come back later.  Shit.

I want to run by this little boutique shop just a couple of plazas over, but I know that MJ is getting tired and cranky.  Besides, the last time I took the girls in there, I got some serious shade from the proprietors.  (I'm sorry, but I'm a SAHM.  If  I'm going to shop in your store, I'm probably going to have my kids in tow.)  So I turn left instead of right and head home.  Only...I really need to go to the grocery store.  We don't have enough milk to get through breakfast in the morning, and we're down to our last few chicken nuggets.

We drive past the turn to the house and head to Kroger.  MJ falls asleep around minute seven of the ten-minute drive.  I have no choice but to wake her up when we get to Kroger.  She doesn't really protest, but I know I'm on borrowed time now.

Since I hadn't really planned to go to the grocery today, I don't have my list pulled together.  So I stop briefly in the produce section to try to remember just how many nights my husband will be home this week (I don't really cook when he's not home) and try to throw together a quick meal plan.  The grocery shopping is slow-going because I have to keep pulling up recipes on my phone to figure out what I need to buy.  Everything I pick up, MJ wants to hold...and then throw on the floor two minutes later.  I make it all the way over to the milk when I remember that I need fresh basil, so I run back over to produce.  On my way back to dairy, I remember that I need bread.  I loathe shopping without a list!  I'm finally back to dairy when I remember that I need two packages of ground beef, and I only grabbed one.  If my FitBit bothered to clock steps while I was pushing the cart, it would be burning up by now.  MJ is starting to get grumpy at this point, so I decide that I just have to head to the check out.  My cart is full.  Surely, I have whatever I need.  I try to put all my groceries on the belt in such a way that it will be easier to unload and put them away when I get home, but the baggers always thwart my plans.

If it's possible, it's even colder and windier now as I try to load MJ and the groceries into the car.  My phone rings.  It's my husband.  He tells me to mark my calendar for next Thursday.  A business associate is in town and wants us all to go to dinner together.  Of course, my calendar is at home on the back of the kitchen door, so I can't mark it right then.  (Indeed, I'll forget all about that conversation by the time I get home.  Then he'll ask me Tuesday night if I have a sitter lined up for dinner on Thursday, and I'll say, "What dinner?  It's not on my calendar."  This happens all the time.)  I hang up and back out of the parking space, which is when my fuel light comes on.  Well, at least there's a gas pump right there, but, damn it, I don't want to get out in the cold again!

I finally get home, and the baby has fallen asleep in the car.  That's perfect because I now have exactly 15 minutes to put away all the groceries before I have to go back to pick up MK from school (three hours go by too quickly!), and it's so much easier to put away the groceries without my little shadow under foot.

 I open the fridge and realize that I need to purge some stuff before I can put away the fresh groceries--another consequence of not planning ahead for this grocery run.  I put away all the perishables and half of the non-perishables.  Then I run to the bathroom because I've been dying to pee ever since we left Target. 

MJ is still asleep when I get to the preschool, but I can't leave her in the car, so I try to get her out without waking her.  Success!  I did it!  But now MK wants me to carry her, too.  Are you kidding me with the tears?  I manage to pick her up, too, while holding her school bag, and we limp out to the car, MK slowly sliding down my hip and doing nothing to hold herself up.  MJ stirs as I put her back in the car, but manages to fall back to sleep during the three-minute drive home.  I don't actually want her to be asleep at this point, but she is.  MK and I chat about school while we drive home.

Once home, I try to wake up MJ, but she is out like a light.  So I take MK inside and fix her lunch.  Everyday she asks for the same thing:  "I want hanguber cheese, chicky nuggets, and yewwow gummies!"  I decide to make her a peanut butter roll-up, Goldfish crackers, and fresh strawberries, which I just bought because she has asked for them every day for a week, and we didn't have any.  While I fix and eat my own lunch, she eats the Goldfish...and that's all.  I have to tell her to eat her roll-up and strawberries over and over again.  I remind her that she has been dying to have some strawberries for a week, but she is unmoved.  An hour later, she has had exactly one bite of the roll-up and one quarter of a strawberry.  I give up.

At 1:30, I tell her that it's time for a nap.  "When the timers go off," she insists.  We live and die by "the timers" these days.  She doesn't want to do anything until a timer sounds.  Upside:  As soon as she hears that timer, she happily agrees to do whatever the timer was set to signal.  So I set the timer for one minute, and then we're off to bed.

Of course, MK won't go to sleep immediately.  No, she'll play in her room (quite noisily) until 3:30 or 4:00.  I'll remind her several times that she needs to quiet down, lay down, and go to sleep.  She'll say, "OK," but it's just a reflex, really.  In the meantime, I go back downstairs, lay down on the couch, and turn on Food Network.  But just five minutes later, MJ starts crying from the car.  So I go out and get her and make her lunch.  Much like her sister, she won't eat much of it.  Nor will she drink much of her milk.

By now, I'm exhausted, and the house is a mess.  However, I can't nap or clean because MJ is raring to go.  She demands my attention.  I can't get anything done.  I sit down to pee, and I hear the distinctive little thumps of two hands and two knees scurrying across the floor.  Before I know it, there's MJ pulling herself up at my knees.  I feel my rope begin to fray. 

I try to watch a little TV, but MJ isn't having it.  She's whining and smacking her hand on my knee, but when I pick her up, she leans over and tries to get back down on the ground.  I sit on the ground to play with her, and she tries to climb all over me.  Yet, again, when I try to hold her, she tries to squirm away.  We read "Hand, Hand, Finger, Thumb" over and over again.  (It's her favorite book.)  It's almost 3:00 now, so I try to put her down for an afternoon nap.  She doesn't sleep, but at least she plays quietly in her crib. 

MK is still not asleep.  She's acting out "Tangled" in her room.  If I wasn't so exhausted, it would probably be entertaining. 

I lay down on my own bed.  By now, I'm beyond sleep.  So I just lay there and rest my weary body.  I thumb through Facebook and AP news and play a quick round of Bonza.  My neighbors text at 3:45 to see if anyone wants to come over and play, but guess what...Molly has finally fallen asleep.  Damn.  I could have really used the adult conversation. 

Maggie has grown bored with playing in her crib.  I take her back downstairs, chuck her in the highchair, and throw some Goldfish on the tray while I clean up the kitchen and finish putting away groceries.  The next thing I know, it's 4:30.

I go upstairs to wake up MK.  She is still tired, so all she wants to do is curl up in my lap for a while.  MJ is out of snacks and starts to squawk.  I set MK down in the chair and go to get more Goldfish just as my husband texts to tell me that he's on his way home.  Shit.  Dinner.  I lost track of time, and now it's 5:00.  So I start to pull together the ingredients for chicken stew and find that I forgot to buy the kidney beans for it.  I text my husband and ask him to stop and get some on his way home.  As I look over the recipe again, I realize that I needed to start this stew around 4:30.  At this point, it won't be ready to eat until nearly 7:00.  That should make for happy toddlers.

MJ has decided that she is over the Goldfish and screeches to signal that she wants down.  I set her in the living room and ask MK to play with her.  MK beckons her to follow to the play room, but, instead, MJ pads out to the kitchen, where she sets herself right under my feet.  I'm trying desperately not to step on her or drop my knife on her or bang her head with a drawer.  She's whining and crying and clutching my leg.  I stop what I'm doing and carry her into the play room, but three minutes later, she finds her way back to my shadow.

By the time my husband gets home, I'm ready to hand him both the baby and the onions and walk out the door.  But I can't.  He tries to tell me about his day, but I'm only half tuned in because I'm thinking of the next step in the recipe.  I know he's tired and exasperated, too, but I can't even make myself help him when he puts MJ down to try to go upstairs and change his clothes, and she loses her mind.  I'm also so absorbed by the task of fixing dinner that I can't recognize that he feels neglected by my failure to even attempt to greet him at the door.  "Here, please take the baby before I lose my mind!" doesn't exactly translate to, "Welcome home, dear!"

By 6:00, the stew is simmering, and I sit down to try to rest.  Only, I feel like if I do that, my husband will think I'm "free" and will run off to do something for himself; so I jump back up and start putting whatever I can into the dishwasher.

The stew is finally ready at 6:40.  I call everyone to the table and serve up the food, cutting chicken and carrots and celery up for the girls to make it easy for them to eat.  I finally sit down myself to eat, and MK announces that she doesn't want her dinner.  We assure her that she's eaten it before and likes it, but she digs in her heels.  We cajole, and she protests.  Now she's fake-crying, and MJ has decided to join in the show.  That fraying rope?  It's mostly a pile of frizzy fibers by now.  I yell, "Enough!  I don't want to hear it anymore!  Just sit there, and don't say another word."  "Stop welling at me, Mama! Just be happy!" MK cries.  I feel ashamed and angry all at once.  My husband jumps in and tries to take over, but it doesn't help my mood.  All I want to do is get up from the table, get into my car, and drive off with the music blaring.  Instead, I cram my dinner into my face and then jump up from the table and start throwing (almost literally) dishes into the dishwasher.

I remind my husband that it's bath night, my not-so-subtle hint that he should take the girls upstairs and get them out of my face.  I continue to clean up the kitchen while trying to think of some legitimate errand that could get me out of the house for a while.  The binkies!  I stop in my tracks and run upstairs to run a comb through my hair and tell my husband that I have to run out for a minute.  "But I want to go wif you!" MK cries from the bath tub.  I try to tell her that I'm not going to do anything fun.  Neither she nor my husband believes me.  Yes, I'm leaving the house.  Yes, I'm going to the store.  Yes, technically, I'll be shopping.  But it isn't fun shopping.  It's I-forgot-a-sanity-saving-device-when-I-was-there-ten-hours-ago shopping.  The only truly enjoyable part of it is that I will be alone for at least 30 minutes.  I may even stop to pee (alone) while I'm there.  Still, MK cries, and my husband quietly fumes.

I run downstairs, grab my wallet, throw on some shoes, and head out the door.  For the next 30 minutes, I am free.  And I'm not free.  Now I'm wondering if MK is still crying.  Did that get MJ riled up, too?  I should hurry.  My husband prefers not to bathe both girls alone because MJ is a little hard to handle now that she's getting mobile and has no fear.  She's probably standing up in the tub, and he's probably getting nervous about it.  Plus, I still have to finish cleaning up the kitchen.  I wish I had finished before I left.  I'm never free from my thoughts. 

As I pull into Target, though, I almost forget all that.  That glowing red bullseye snaps me back to the world, and I remember that I can actually stroll through the toy aisle to find a birthday present for that party this weekend because I don't have any kids with me.  And I wanted to look through the clearance racks in the toddler section.  It's down to 70% off now.  I should probably run over to Hallmark and try to stock up on upcoming birthday cards, too...  I've been in the toy section for about five minutes when my husband texts to ask if MJ has any clean pajamas.  She doesn't.  Remember?  It's been eight days since I've done laundry.  Distracted by the thought that my clean children don't have any clean pajamas to wear, I decide to skip the gifts for now.  I'll just figure it out later.  I run over to the clearance racks.  Maybe I can buy some clean pajamas.  Another text.  Do I know where the binky is?  MJ is losing her ever-lovin' mind.  Shit.  Forget the clearance stuff.  I head over to the binkies, and, of course, they are completely out of the binkies MJ uses.  Are you kidding me with this?  Hallmark will have to wait because now I have to go to Meijer to see if they have the binkies.

Of course, Meijer is clear across the road in another group of stores altogether.  It couldn't be just next door.  That would be too easy.  So I get back into my car and drive over there...only to find that they don't have them in stock either.  Really?  Are Avent binkies a hot thing right now?  Well, I guess I'll have to try Buy Buy Baby.  I should have just gone there in the first place.

I'm flustered and aggravated at this point.  My 30-minute escape to peace and quiet has turned into a mad dash to get those damned binkies and get home (to a screaming kid no less).  I find the binkies at Buy Buy Baby, and just as I'm checking out, my husband texts again:  "MJ is fine now.  Drinking her milk.  Both girls bathed and dressed for bed.  Take your time."  I don't take him up on it.  I'm not in the mood to do any other shopping at this point.

I go home and return to loading the dishwasher.  I'm mentally and physically exhausted now.  I tell MK that it's just about time for bed.  "When the timers go off," she protests.  I set the timer on my phone for five minutes.

When the timer goes off, MK announces, "It's nighty-night time!"  We all head up the stairs.  My husband takes MJ to her room, reads her a couple of books, says prayers with her, and tucks her into her crib.  I take MK to the potty, and then she (slowly) brushes her teeth in between refrains of the Bubble Guppies teeth-brushing song.  It should be a cute moment that I make a point to burn into my memory, but instead, I cut her off and say, "Is it Mommy's turn to brush your teeth?"  Once we're finished in the bathroom, we head to her room to read stories.  I try to limit her to three, but some nights it's more like five.  Tonight, we read four.  Then it's up into bed, and I head back downstairs. By now, it's 8:50. 

I hand wash the day's bottles and the girls' dishes.  Then I clean up the toy room and the living room.  Finally, my "chores" are finished.  So I go out to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee.  I sit down and start watching an episode of "Top Chef" from the DVR.  I'm still exhausted, but I'm not sleepy.  There's a difference you know.

MK is reenacting Frozen in her bed, and she's very loud.  I use the 2-way speaker on the monitor to remind her to be quiet.  Five minutes later, I am walking up the stairs to tell her again that she needs to quiet down and go to sleep.  She begins to cry and say that she's scared.  "Lay down on the floor, Mama," she says.  I try to talk her down, but she gets more and more upset to the point of hyperventilation, so I lay down on the floor next to her bed.  Every time she tries to talk, I shush her and tell her to go to sleep.  This goes on for 35 minutes until I'm fairly certain that she has drifted off, so I slowly and silently get up and head for the door.  Just as I'm lifting my leg over the baby gate in her doorway, she whips her head around and asks where I'm going.  "I have to go to the bathroom," I say, "I'll be right back."  That's a lie.  I don't have to go to the bathroom, and I won't be right back.  I feel terrible, but...

I put on my pajamas and go back downstairs to finish my coffee.  As soon as my show ends, I head upstairs to bed.  I don't contemplate the day at all.  I mindlessly thumb through Facebook on my phone, play a round of Bonza, then turn out the light and pray that no one wakes up.  It's almost 11:00.

At 12:30, MJ starts crying...

*     *     *     *     *

This (or some variation of it) is my life every day.  Am I complaining?  No.  Well, maybe just a little.  But, really, I just want to convey what staying at home with children entails.  It isn't all play dates and crafts and Rice Krispy treats, much like all those other blogs led me to believe all those years ago.  It's down-in-the-trenches hard work most days.  It is no harder than going outside the home to work every day, but it's no easier either.  (Hello!  People who work outside the home get to pee alone.  That, in and of itself, makes up for all the other aggravation that they face in the day!)  It is physically and mentally draining sometimes.  Yes, we have some very fun, relaxed days.  Yes, I laugh at least once every day.  Yes, I love my children more than anything in this world.  And, yes, even though I could go back to work if I wanted to, I am choosing to spend these years at home with my girls.  (And thank you to my husband for making that possible.)  But I would be lying if I said there aren't days when I think that I would give my husband's right nut to be able to go to a job-job.  Just for one day.  Just to pee alone.  

And I don't mean for this to be any sort of backhand to all the happy, sunny, la vie est belle mommy blogs out there that chronicle only or mostly the pretty, put-together parts of staying home with children.  I just mean for this to show what my reality is as a stay-at-home-mom, and it sure as hell doesn't resemble the "Leave It to Beaver" and "Donna Reed" reruns I used to watch on TV when I was a kid.  Let me tell you, those women were either frauds or closet drinkers because I can count on one hand the number of times I have greeted my husband at the door fully made up, hair done, nice clothes, and smile on my face.  The other 1,091 days, I have "greeted" him with a crying child shoved in his face or with a curt, "Well, my day has been AWFUL!" or with absolutely no eye contact or words at all.  (You can imagine what that does for a marriage, but that's another post altogether.  As you can tell from my blogging history, it will be another three or four months before I get around to that.  Hell, it took me five days just to finish this post!)  Meanwhile, the kids are running around like banshees, sometimes without their pants; dinner is running late; the simple tasks that he asked me to do (marking my calendar and finding a sitter, for instance) are not done; and I have not one sweet craft made out of tiny hand prints to show him. 

But...la vie est (still) belle.  You just sometimes have to dig through a lot of crap to get to the belle.