I Got My Hair Cut...Don't Tell Will

I just got back from a salon in Wheaton where they cut more than 10 inches from my head. Tomorrow, my hair will be on its way to Locks of Love where it will hopefully make a nice looking wig for a deserving young child. I feel good about that. What I don't feel good about is the look I know I will get from Will when I pick him up from the airport on Sunday. Don't get me wrong. I do not allow Will to determine my hair styles, nor am I afraid of him. But I know that he really, really, really did not want me to cut my hair short, and it makes me a little sad that he will not be able to hide his disappointment when he sees the new 'do. He will still love me (I think), and he won't say it looks bad, but he will be sad. Poor Will.
My decision to cut it came after one too many, "Wow, your hair is really long" comments that was not followed with any kind of compliment. It's kind of like when you see someone wearing a terribly ugly sweater. It startles you and before you can even process the sheer ugliness you have to say, "I love your sweater," mostly because you need to say something so you don't throw up all over said sweater. OK, well, I hope my hair didn't make people want to loose their lunch, but it definitely needed to be cut. I made the wrong decision to put long layers in. It looked fine, I think, when it was done properly, but these days I'm lucky to get a shower during the day. I certainly never had time to dry and style my hair. I ended up air drying it, and all of you know how crazy thick and unruly my hair is. Air drying just doesn't work for me. So then I'd pull it back and have the long bangs hanging. It annoyed my grandma so much to see me constantly tucking the bangs behind my ears, last time I was over, she pinned them back with a bobby pin without asking. She, unlike Will, will be thrilled with my haircut!
Yes, so anyway, I'm not going to tell Will about my haircut while he's in San Diego at his conference. This shouldn't be hard since he's not calling me because he doesn't want to pay for roaming charges. And, actually, his fiscal responsibility (quite the euphimism) might just help me justify my new haircut. I'm going to save a lot on water and hair products. Do you think that will help lessen his disappointment?-

Gobble Gobb-Ho Ho Ho

Ethan loved his first Thanksgiving! And, I know that I am a bit partial, but Ethan and Jake were PERFECT yesterday. Both boys slept all the way through dinner in Winnetka. Seriously, I was amazed at the great timing. Never in a million years did I actually expect to sit through the duration of the meal. I thought, OK, I'm a mom now, so the time of relaxing holidays are over. But, man, I tell you, it was like I didn't have a kid for that little bit of time! He's such a good boy! And when he was awake, he was wonderfully social and tolerant of the many flashbulbs. And there were many! Can you blame us? They're cute enough without their matching Thanksgiving outfits, but come on, they were adorable! And I really can't get over Jake's fantastic hair. It was parted and styled yesterday - classic! He's such a tiny peanut compared to our big boy. I like to hold him and relive my tiny baby days from just a few months ago. We all had a great day. And we even got to spend some time with my family, too. We drove from Winnetka to Lemont in under an hour and had some dessert and visited with the family. OK, I'll admit it: I also had another plate of turkey with the trimmings. I thought it was only fair to sample it since the food was still out. In my defense, though, I chose an apple for dessert and skipped the pies. I was glad we made it out there because it was the first time for a while that the WHOLE family was around for Thanksgiving at the same house. Auntie Nancy does an amazing job cooking for so many people. Fun times!

Then today we got ready for the next holiday! Our house is fully decked out, tree trimmed and all, ready for Christmas. And we had Will's Grandbob, his friend Jan, his Aunts Marge and Carolyn, and his parents over for a big pasta dinner. I made meat sauce, they brought a salad and pie, and we had a tasty meal. I was excited to use my individual dishes for oil and cheese that I rarely use. (Thanks Crate and Barrel.) Will's Grandbob lives in Indy and doesn't get a chance to visit often, so it was nice they could make a trip out to our house. Ethan ate at the table with us, and Will's aunt commented that it was his first dinner party. These days are full of firsts, that's for sure.

Can I just gush for a bit and tell you that I really am so in love with my son. He is the cutest little man in the world, and he's laughing and smiling all the time now. I just want to squeeze him! Being a parent, with all the exhaustion and worry, is so worth it. Who knew we had this capacity to love so fiercely?

Senior Day at Kohls

Our lives have been fairly uneventful this past week. Hence the following blog entry about Kohls:

Ethan and I took a trip to Kohls today so that I could return something. I ended up buying an outfit for Ethan, the picture of which is below (along with a few other recent pics). He will wear it when him and Ben and Drew have their winter picture taken. We've been talking about it, so I thought I better get him a nice wintery outfit. I figure since it has a polar bear and not something strictly Christmas (like Santa...or Baby Jesus), he can wear it all season. Smart shopping, I say! Today was senior day at Kohls as well as a big 50% off sale. What this means is that there were even more than the typical amount of seniors at the store. Everywhere I looked, old, old women were wheeling around those basket walkers you can use at Kohls. It was quite difficult navigating around the hundreds of grandma's stocking up on, well, seemingly everything. You see, those wheel around baskets were a marketing genius on the part of some Kohls employee because I have never seen one of those carts not filled to the brim. It's incredible! People can really pack it in those things. There are clothes (with hangers poking dangerously through the mesh) and frames and shoeboxes all crammed in and usually items hanging out. I really think people end up buying more because they have someplace to put it. I mean, how many department stores have carts? You don't walk into Carsons or Macys, put your kid in a cart and tool around like you do at a grocery store. No. You only get as much as you can carry in your arms. But at Kohls, they give you that cart, giving you the excuse to buy one more holiday novelty decoration that, for some reason, is ALWAYS at least 50% off. Man, you gotta love Kohls. But, alas, I do not use those carts because then I would need to fill it, and I don't want to hear about how much we don't need that cute soap dispenser in the shape of three stacked pumpkins. But, Will, it was only $3.95 marked down from $12.00!
OK, here are the pictures:







Move over Hugh Hefner...

Ethan's discovered his tongue.









Cute, huh?

My Son Hates Books...or Elevators

So, I took Ethan to the brand new LaGrange Public Library today. It's right on LaGrange road in downtown. Yesterday, we were going to walk there, but he got really sleepy and we aborted the mission. So anyway, I threw him in the car seat (gently) today, and we drove. I put him in his umbrella stroller and we walked into the beautiful new building. Everything is so nice and pristine still, and I was so excited to finally have a library in our town again.
First, we went to the children's section. We walked around it and then I realized that Ethan has a ton of books on his shelf we haven't even read, and, who am I kidding, he's not old enough to pick new ones out. So we left and headed for the elevators to go to the adult section. There are two books I wanted to check out, and I was going to see about renting a DVD or two.
No sooner had the elevator door opened to the second floor when Ethan started SCREAMING. Not crying. Not whimpering. Not moaning. SCREAMING. High pitched, fast, scary, get-me-the-hell-out-of-here kind of screaming. This is a scream that I hear maybe once a week. It means, "I'm in pain" or "I'm really pissed" or "I'm so overtired it hurts!" Immediately, every person in sight turned to look at the abusive mother with the psychotic child.
I bent down to him and shushed in his ear, trying to calm him down.
I made a fruitless effort to insert his pacifier.
After what seemed like an hour but was more like 30 seconds, he calmed down.
I did a quick look around, said out loud to nobody in particular, "I don't know what happened. He never cries like that" and pretended to be very interested in the random shelf of books I was next to at the moment.
Then, WHAM, Ethan was screaming again.
I beelined it for the elevators as quickly as I could and started frantically pushing the button while trying to calm him down and doing my best to look inconspicuous. (Pay no attention to the frantic first time mom attempting to look calm in the face of a crisis.) Thankfully, this grandmothery woman walked over and suggested I pick him out out of the stroller. I will forever be indebted to this woman, who, so eloquently, gave me the number one piece of baby advice I have ever received, hands down: when babies cry, pick them up. Genius! Thanks, lady. I know, I know, she didn't mean any harm, and she was sweet in an unsolicited, annoying, and obvious advice sort of way. I did pick him up, which did, after a moment, calm him down, eliciting a "See, he just needed some loving" comment from Well-meaning Grandma Character.
At last, the elevator opened, and we rode it down to the first floor, where we gingerly danced out the door.

Now, there are two conclusions one might draw from this situation:

1. Ethan hates books. His parents are teachers and voracious readers, but he is asserting his need to be different early.

or

2. Ethan hates elevators. Something about the feel of the elevator spooked him, and he freaked out accordingly.

Let's hope for number two.

First Time for Everything

There were two major firsts in the Meuer household last night. First, Ethan rolled over from his tummy to his back. The story, actually is pretty tragic. I had just left to go tutor this student, but I remembered I needed to ask Will a question. While pulling out of the driveway, I called his cellphone. Thirty seconds into our conversation, Will yelled out, "Oh my God! He just rolled over!" I was like, "What? You're kidding!" Nope. Not kidding. Ethan, who I spend ALL day with rolled over. And I wasn't there. I'd like to say I was simply happy Will got to see this milestone. I am happy Will saw it, but I was terribly sad I missed it. Everyone is saying, "He'll do it again." Yes, of course he will. But he will never do it for the first time again. Oh well, at least I was on the phone when he did it. I sure couldn't get him to do it again today, though, so we'll have to keep working on it.

The other big first was his first solid meal. As solid as you can call rice cereal mush. We gave him just a teaspoon or so at our dinnertime. He did pretty well, definitely interested but still pushing most things out with his tongue. I am a bit sad to be starting him on solids as it means he's really growing up. But it was also fun, and I like having him in the high chair at dinner. This morning, he had more cereal while I ate my oatmeal for breakfast. It was pretty nice eating breakfast with him and having a relaxing morning routine. I imagine just a few short months from now feeding time will be nothing but relaxing. I'm already thinking of what to use as a drop cloth under his high chair.

Here are some of the latest pictures of the man:


In the spirit of a typical four month old, everything goes in the mouth. Here's a picture of Ethan's makeout session with his fish.






I put Ethan in a straitjacket, er, I mean SwaddleMe for his naps. He's getting crafty, though, and manages to get out of it sometimes.











Here he is at our first full family dinner.

100 Years of Reading This Book

I've been reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book, One Hundred Years of Solitude for about two months now. I put it down for a while and read Water For Elephants (very good), but now I'm back to it. I stopped reading it because I just needed a break. It is a book about everything and nothing. It is so incredibly random yet strangely entertaining. I read a full page and then have to reread it because I have no idea what just happened. It's weird. It's endearing. It's annoying! You may wonder, then, why on earth I continue to read it. I thought about this today, and here's what I came up with:

1. I don't like not finishing a book. Those of you who know me well know that I have an obsessive compulsive evenness issue. I need symmetry. Reading half of a book is not symmetrical. It's uneven and terrible and cannot be tolerated.

2. It's a challenge. This is a book that won the Nobel Prize. I don't know why, but I keep thinking if I finish it I might have a better idea.

3. It's my book club book. I have a two person book club that basically started when my friend and colleague Joseph and I discovered we were reading the same book. Hence, our book club was born. We don't have meetings, and we don't discuss the books all that much. We simply decide what we'll read and read it. And I always take at least two months longer to read the book than Joseph. Regardless, I feel a responsibility to finish for the sake of our Not So Real Book Club. Plus, Joseph thought the book was completely crazy, too, but says the ending was worth reading it. He may be lying, but I need to find out.

4. I read another Marquez book, Love in the Time of Cholera, in my AP English class senior year, and I remember loving it. I couldn't tell you one thing about it, but I do remember I really liked it.

5. Finally, the book can be downright entertaining while frustrating the heck out of you. Seriously, I don't know what really is happening (not your typical plot line here), yet I find myself chuckling inside a lot. I just opened up the book and pointed to a random passage and this is what I got: "When they thought of the desperate measure of seasoning him with pepper, cumin seeds, and laurel leaves and boiling him for a whole day over a slow fire, he had already begun to decompose and they had to bury him hastily." I know from teaching a Marquez story to my Honors class that his style is called Magical Realism. It is weird, no doubt, but cool because the strangest things happen yet the way it's told you believe it.

I am finally more than halfway through and have 180 pages to go. I hope to finish by Thanksgiving! Then I can get started on the next book club book that I imagine Joseph has already finished. Sigh...