The Breakup

I should have known it would come to this eventually, but I'm a loyal person and I tried to be optimistic. I really thought we could make things work.

I guess the first signs of trouble were the complaining. The unhappiness and discontent were so strong I should have seen them for what they were. Instead, I thought that changes would make a difference. I listened sympathetically and when the time came, I followed. In knew the changes were going to add distance between us, but I had faith.

I guess I was just holding onto the past. Things had been so good that I was willing to do anything to keep the relationship going. But, after the changes, things continued to go down hill. I tried to be understanding, I put up with the waiting. But it was all for nothing.

This week I made one last ditch attempt. I reached out, I tried to make the connection. At first, I couldn't get through, but once I did, we just couldn't come to a suitable arrangement.

I had to admit that it was over.

So, last night I broke up with my hair stylist.

Wait, what?

Oh, you thought I was talking about Andy. Oops, sorry about that.

I know it's not a big deal, but, I'm still sad that it had to happen. I really did like the work she did. She was a little flaky, but it wasn't a problem at the old salon. However, when she decided to leave the salon, things started to go down hill. I loved the new salon, but it was a long drive for me, and it was in the other direction from work. The old salon I could just hit on the way home. Then, they started to reduce the salon hours. I had a difficult time scheduling my last two appointments, but this time I couldn't even get through until Wednesday. The salon is closed Sun. and Mon. On Tuesday's they are open from 10 - 3. With those hours, I don't even know why they bother. The rest of the week the salon closes at 7:00, so the latest I could schedule and appointment was 5:00. Not very convenient for someone with a job.

There were other problems too. She was often late. One time I sat waiting for half an hour without her even apologizing for wasting my time. She also complained a lot. At my last appointment she indicated she was having money problems while she kept trying to add on extra services. She seemed to fail to notice that working 25 hours a week may not be enough to support herself.

So, I called the old salon and scheduled an appointment. I was a little nervous about the highlighting, but both the cut and color turned out great. Since their hours are better and the service was just as good, I'm going to go with the new stylist. I hate to dump the old girl, but she did it to herself.

I also have to admit that I enjoyed the gossip. The new stylist gave me all the "dirt" on the old one. That she was fired instead of quitting. Who knows which is true, but the reason given was for tardiness, which I had experienced myself. She also told me that the old stylist had come in for a facial last week and asked if she could reapply...and was told NO. Oh, and finally, the new stylist pointed out everything that was wrong with my last haircut.

I don't know, do you think the new stylist might be trying to "steal" me back?

Whatever, I don't care about the gossip. I care about service and convenience, and whoever does the best job providing them will get my service.

Tipping Etiquette

I don't think they cover situations like this in Emily Post.

Michael's hair has been getting out of control lately. I planned on taking him in for a trim while I was at home with him in October, but I had to change my plans when he fell and cut his head. The stitches were right along his hairline and I knew the stylist would have to comb over the injury numerous times during the haircut. I decided to wait until the cut had healed a bit before taking him in.

In the past, he has always been very good about haircuts. So good that I'm normally complemented for having such a cooperative little boy. Yeah, I knew that was too good to last.

I got out of work early yesterday and decided that it would be a great time to take Michael into the salon. He did not agree with me. He let me take him out to the car, but I should have known things were not going to go well when he held his arms over his hair for the entire ride over.

When we got there, there were two stylists and two customers. When the first stylist finished up, she invited Michael over to her chair. He clung to me. I picked him up and carried him over. He clung to me. I tried to put him in the chair and he wrapped his arms and legs around in a death grip. He also started sobbing.

The stylist was really great. She tried talking with him to calm him down. She had a good feel for how to coerce without making him more resistant. There were no other customers waiting, so she spent a good 10 minutes working with me to get Michael to agree to let her trim his hair.

No luck.

I really didn't want to go through all of this again, but I was starting to realize that there was no way to get Michael to submit and that I was going to have to take him home without a hair cut. Then, another customer came in.

"Oh well Michael. She has another customer. We can't hold her up any longer. Say good-bye." I went over to get my jacket so we could leave.

Michael freaked. Full on tantrum. Sobbing and yelling in the middle of the salon.

You want to know why?

Because, and I quote, "I want the lady to CUT MY HAIR!"

Yes, the child that had just spent 10 minutes fighting a haircut was angry because I wouldn't let him get his hair cut. Clearly, his only true desire in this situation is to NOT do whatever I want him to do.

I told him he would have to wait until she was done with the new customer and he casually walked over to the toy bin and started playing with the blocks. He played quietly the entire time and as soon as she told him it was his turn, he hopped up and ran right over to her chair. He sat still for the entire cut and did everything she asked him to do. He smiled and thanked her when she gave him a lollipop. It was as if those first 10 minutes had never happened.

So, that made me wonder, what is the appropriate tipping etiquette when your extremely contrary child throws a fit in the middle of the salon and the stylist remains cool, calm and supportive enough that said child finally gives in to the hair cut? I went with 50%, and I'm pretty sure it was not enough.

When we got home, I tried to snap a picture of Michael, but he was back to being contrary. This is what I got when I asked him to "stand still and look at me".

Clearly, he was done cooperating for the day.

And So He Walks

I'm the youngest of three children who are very close in age. Close enough that both my brother and sister were two when I was born. And no, they are not twins, they are just really close in age. As you might guess, when a family has three little ones in diapers at the same time, the kids may not get as much individual attention as an only child gets. As the youngest of the three, I felt the full force of this. Don't get me wrong, I'm not passing a judgment. In fact, it was very liberating for me because I was normally allowed to do things at the same time as they did, not at the same age. But, I think everyone with any experience with families with more than one child knows that the more kids there are, the less coddled they normally are.

Having said that, Michael is an only child. He's also the only child of a somewhat older mother who understands full and well how short his childhood is going to be. I know how fast it's going, and I want to enjoy it while I can. So, it's possible that Michael may get away with some things that many kids, including myself, would never get away with.

One of those things is that I carry him whenever I get the chance. Yes, he's 3.5 and perfectly capable of walking on his own, but I've been saying since day one that I will carry him as long as he will let me and as long as I can physically do it. The fact that he's a darter helped to reinforce this, since I had to pick him up and carry him even when he didn't want me too just to keep him safe.

He's been pretty clingy lately, so he has been asking me to carry him a lot. However, he's also growing really fast. So fast that I swear he grows inches over night. He's really tall and he's no lightweight anymore either. I hate to say it, but I just cannot carry him the way I used to. I can handle short distances, but that's about it.

So, I'm sad to say that my sweet, little, itty, bitty baby now has to walk on his own two feet most of the time.

Sniff, sniff.

I have a feeling that it's more painful for me than it is for him.

Irony

I do my weekly grocery shopping on Sunday mornings. The store is normally pretty crowded then, but it's really the only practical time for me to go. Add to the crowds the fact that I insist on taking Michael with me, and we end up having some very um...interesting...shopping trips.

Some weeks Michael and I fight over whether or not I will buy him some stupid piece of junk toy that has been hung at small child in shopping cart eye level. Some weeks we have fun counting out oranges as I place them in the bag. Other weeks we will fight over Michael's desire to buy more Popsicles, even though he doesn't eat them and we already have a box in the freezer to begin with.

Then, some weeks Michael makes the whole shopping trip a treat. Yesterday was one of those days. He was in a very agreeable mood. He didn't try to convince me to go back and look for toys that don't exist. He didn't fight me to buy the Jolly Ranchers he saw. Not only did he not fight me about having him ride in the cart, he didn't even ask me if he could walk.

But the best part came in the bread aisle. A number of shoppers - all women - were gathered in one area all trying to buy the same brand of bread. I pulled my cart over to the side to wait until others had moved on and chatted with Michael. I don't know what I said to trigger this, but Michael announced loudly, "Mommy, you wear me out."

I gave him an incredulous look and responded, "I wear you out?"

The entire aisle of shoppers burst out laughing.

You know, we all may come from different backgrounds, and have different beliefs, but the irony of Michael's comment was not lost on a single women standing there.

I'm Not a Short Order Cook

I've been a member of the Baby Center birth boards for almost four years now. I've seen all kinds of crazy posts and witnessed fights that were completely absurd. I also saw some interesting debates on parenting styles and philosophies, and the flaming that normally went with them. I always tried to be respectful to other's views and if I couldn't, I would just stay out of it.

But I did have one hot button issue that could easily get my panties in a wad, and it was a pretty silly one too. These were the posts about kids being fussy eaters back when the May 2006 babies were about 1.5 to 2 years old. We would discuss how stressful fussy eaters are and share strategies on how to encourage our kids to eat more. I could always count on at least one mom jumping on the tread and commenting that you just put the food in front of the kid and if they don't eat it, too bad. They will eat when they are hungry. They always managed to say somewhere in the post that, "I am not a short order cook."

Every time I saw that, my brain would explode and I'd start foaming at the mouth. Whoever made these comments clearly did not have a child like Michael. I always considered that attitude a luxury. I would love to have that attitude, but at that time, I had watched Michael go from 99th percentile for weight at birth down to 15th percentile at one year. Even though his doctor wasn't concerned, I was. Michael did not eat. Sometimes I could get him to eat yogurt or string cheese, but he wouldn't even eat Cheerios. I offered him some foods well over a hundred times and he never ate them. In fact, Michael never actually asked for food (other than cookies and junk food) until he was almost three years old. So, if Michael did ask for a specific food, I've always pretty much jumped on it because, OMG he actually wants food.

I've never pushed Michael to eat. I've always offered, and if he doesn't want it, he doesn't have to eat it. If he would ask for something healthy instead, fine. If he asked for junk, no way.

Recently, with Michael's new debating skills surfacing, this approach has not been working so well. Last night I asked if he wanted noodles. "Yes!" I gave him a choice between dinosaur and Spiderman noodles. He picked Spiderman.

"Are you sure? Once I start making them, you can't change your mind."

He assured me that yes, he wanted Spiderman noodles. Yet, I had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

Five minutes into boiling the Spiderman noodles Michael yells in to me that he wanted dinosaur noodles. I calmly explained that I had started making the Spiderman noodles. He told me to put the Spiderman noodles back. I calmly explained that I would not. He screamed and yelled that he wouldn't eat them. I calmy responded that he didn't have to eat them if he didn't want to. And it just escalated from there.

I ignored him for a minute, but he started making demands for everything but Spiderman noodles. I remained calm and basically just repeated my stance over and over. Finally, I looked at him and said, "You know Michael, I'm not a short order cook." Then I walked out of the room.

He kept on complaining about the Spiderman noodles when I served them up. He refused to come into the dinning room to eat with us. He ordered me to "PUT THE SPIDERMAN NOODLES AWAY!"

So I did.

"I WANT MY SPIDERMAN NOODLES!" He's so predictable. I calmy took the noodles back out of the fridge, warmed them, and told him that if he wanted them he needed to join us at the table. He did join us, still sniffling, and ate a few of his noodles.

You would think that after such a scene, I'd be frustrated and annoyed. But I wasn't. Partly, because I kept calm and managed to get my message through to Michael. But moslty because Michael is growing and developing well and I now have the luxury of not being a short order cook.

Changing Tactics

It's not uncommon to hear people with small children joke that the reason kids are cute is to keep parents from killing them. Really, that may work for the two year old crowd, but by the time they hit 3.5, being cute simply is not enough to make up for their less desirable personality traits. So, they need to come up with a new approach to pacify us. This is where being funny comes in. Cute = good. Cute and funny = great!

Last night during bath time, Michael managed to pull out a number of those less desirable personality traits. It started with his initial refusal to take a bath, which quickly turned into him demanding to take a bath once he realized I didn't care one way or another. We had several discussions during the bath about the consequences of splashing. I was chastised several times for trying to spell actual words with his tub letters - heaven forbid. Finally, we ended the bath with negotiations over how long Michael could remain in the tub. I'm proud to announce that he fully understands that 20 minutes is longer than 10 minutes. After much discussion, he now also understands that insisting on 20 minutes more may just get him removed from the tub immediately.

Not that it was stressful, or anything.

After his ten minutes was up, he climbed out of the tub and let me dry him off. Next thing I hear is a nice loud toot. Michael looks right at me and grins. (And I grin back because little toots crack me up.) He realized that he didn't have anything covering his hiney so he informed me that his toot had fallen on the floor. Next, he turned around and looked at the floor to see where it landed. Imagine his surprise when there was nothing there. He was shocked!

And that's when all of the stress and annoyance from his bath time negations just disappeared. It was just too cute, and too funny. I ended up laughing as I tried to explain to him what happened. *

*Thank goodness that They Might Be Giants Here Comes Science has a song about gas, liquids and solids, or that conversation would have ended up being funnier than Michael's original comment.

My Little Fish

While we did not send Michael to preschool this year, we did enroll him in several classes at the local community center. I picked Little Chefs so that Michael would have a chance to socialize with other children, and in the hopes that maybe seeing other kids eat food might convince him that eating food is a good idea. He seems to tolerate the class well enough, but seeing other children eat has done nothing to expand his culinary horizons.

The second class we enrolled him in was swimming. He and my mom spent the entire summer at the pool. Michael would spend hours every day in the pool because he loves it so much. My poor mom was exhausted! So, when I saw that Michael was old enough for swimming lessons that didn't require my mom to swim with him, I jumped on the oppurtunity.

Michael loves his swimming lessons and has recently moved from tugboats to speed boats level. My mom snapped some pictures of him one day.

I actually remember doing these very same kicking exercises when I was his age. It's not surprising to me that Michael loves swimming. I love swimming so much that many of my earliest memories are from the pool.

Michael also loves his teacher, Miss Cathy. I have no idea what his Little Chef's teacher's name is. I ask him each week and he never answers. However, I can always tell when he's had swimming because he always talks about Miss Cathy.

I cannot wait to get him down to the beach next summer. I think he's really going to love the bay this year.