Dark Hair

I had my hair colored last week in the hopes to get it back to the color it's suppose to be.   I'd darkened it two months ago and it was a good step, but it wasn't all the way there.    Over time the color faded out and my hair lightened back some due to the highlighting I'd had done as it grew.  The last time I had it colored I thought the change was fairly dramatic and yet very few people noticed.

This time we did one shade darker.   The little pallet of colors in the hair color swatch book has all kinds of shades.   We went one shade darker in a book with page after page of colors.   It was darker. definitely and I liked it.   Interestingly enough, making the change from faded darker to a bit darker was a much more noticeable change.   People immediately say something when they see me.

It's been really unexpected.  I had my hair colored on Wednesday and as of Sunday, I must have had twenty-five people comment on the color and how much they like it.   It's all been positive comments and it's all been how they think the color suits me.

I don't think I've ever gone this dark in color before.   It's a little darker now than it will ultimately be because of the initial fading.   I'm hoping it's close to my natural color but I won't know that for a bit of time to come given how slow-growing my hair is.

I like the new color.   It's been fun hearing from other people that have noticed the difference.

The Big Boy Update:  "But he had on a helmet!"   We were at a school class playdate this afternoon and my son was playing with one of his friends, Oliver.   Someone said, "there's a child with a big stick about to throw it".  I looked over and it was my son not with a stick, but with a large log.   As I called out to him he launched the log straight at Oliver's head.   I ran over yelling that that that sticks were not weapons and that throwing was never okay.   My son replied, "but he had on a helmet!"   The helmet did save Oliver's head as it bounced right off the top of it.   We still had to have quite the discussion though.  The remainder of the play date I talked to other mothers from our school and got some great advice on how to handle similar situations they've been dealing with as their children are slightly older than ours.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Pig Pen.   Do you remember Pig Pen from the cartoon, Charlie Brown?  I was reminded of the character as we watched, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown before Halloween last week.  Today I could have renamed my daughter to Pig Pen.   I must have cleaned off her filthy face seven or eight times during the birthday party and play date we went to this afternoon.   I cleaned her hands off as well, guessing she was passing on dirt from one to the other.   But the smudged, filthy face would be back a short time later.    The other children remained clean and neat, of course.

Fitness Update:  Uncle Jonathan ran in another half-marathon today.   He beat his best time yet.   He's still working on getting to a qualifying time for the Boston Marathon and at the rate he's going, he's going to get there soon.   My running is still slow as molasses.

The Angel of Death

We have another neighborhood Halloween party to go to tonight.  Last night's event was at the clubhouse and was organized by the neighborhood social committee.   Tonight's party is hosted by a single family who has graciously (or possibly foolishly) invited the entire neighborhood into their home (where their two-month-old son will be sleeping).

We went last year and they were excellent hosts.   Their party is a costume party and last year I just grabbed an old witch costume from the attic and went as that.   This year I didn't know what to be but something occurred to me as I was going through the Halloween boxes in the attic.

I found some white fairy wings that fit an adult.   I located my grenade vest I purchased from a state surplus sale (who knew you'd need a vest that could hold twenty-four grenades?)   I pulled out some camoflage pants and then it hit me: I'd be the angel of death.

So yeah, they're fairy wings, but if anyone asks me I'll just say, "how do you know what angel wings looks like?"  When people asked me what I am, I'll say, "I'm the Angel of Death...would you like to pick your poison?"   Then I'll reach into two of my grenade pouches, bring out some mini-liquor bottles and let them make their selection.

The Big Boy Update:  Average.   My son finished participating in a study to asses early childhood development to try and determine to the development of autism-spectrum disorders.   At the conclusion of his participation in the study we'd get results of his evaluation.  He was rated average on everything, which is good news.   His internalizing behavior and externalizing behaviors are well within the normal range.  He was tested using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning and tested average on Visual Reception, Fine Motor, Receptive Language and Expressive Language.   His entire composite was within the average range as well.   We weren't surprised, we didn't have any concerns that he had autism-spectrum tendencies, but it's good to know.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Gymnastics with Gigi.   We went today for the first mother-daughter gymnastics class with my running buddy neighbor and her daughter, Gigi.   The hour was entertaining and fun for everyone I think.   The cutest part was when Gigi and my daughter were both straddling the floor-balance beam together hugging each other.

Halloween Thirsty

Halloween used to be all about the candy to me.   When I was young. it was about acquiring the candy.   As I became an adult it turned into giving the candy.   Now that I have children, they're the ones interested in the candy.   Today, to me, Halloween is all about passing out adult drinks.

We're in a relatively new neighborhood and our community holiday traditions are only a year or two old.   Last year was the first year we had enough families to trick-or-treat in the neighborhood as before that the handful of houses and lack of children made other neighborhoods more appealing.  Last year I decided (with some fellow neighbors) that offering alcoholic drinks to the parents would be a way to enhance the evening for adults as they walked around with their children.   

We're not the first to think of this idea, but we latched on to it with a vengeance.   There wasn't a large percentage of families that handed out adult drinks last year, but those that did had a lot of fun with it.   My neighbor made a blood red drink and served it in blood bags and I had urine specimen bottles filled with something yellow and sweet. 

On September 1st this year my neighbor, Mary, and I talked about what we were planning on doing this year.   We had two months and we needed to start planning.   I wanted to come up with something that would be as big a hit as last year's urine cups.   I'll spare you the ideas and iterations I went through over those two months and get to what I ended up doing. 

I went with a medical/research theme not unlike last year.   I wore borrowed scrubs from my neighbor for my outfit.   We lit the front porch in large, black lights that pointed inwards towards the door.   On a table on the porch were Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers and test tubes filled with substances that glowed in \ black light.   My husband made signs showing "Danger Radiation", "Experiment" and the radiation symbol.    

My drink was served in a 50ML (1.5oz) specimen tube with a two-inch green glow stick floating inside.   Each tube had a green screw-off cap and words reading "Batch 42" (or some other batch number) written on it them ink only visible under UV light.   

I offered drinks to the parents and explained that the testing we'd done made us fairly confident the radioactive levels were mostly safe.  I suggested they didn't eat the radioactive slug (glow stick) as we didn't have the results back from the autopsies on those that did.   I had other patter that changed depending on if I knew the family or didn't.   I would hold up one or more of the vials into the black light so the batch numbers were visible and tut tut about that being a bad batch and that I wouldn't recommend giving that one to their husband unless he really deserved it.    

There was lots to say and it was all fun.  Parents who didn't come to the porch would find me walking out to see if they would be willing to participate in our study and how did they feel about drinking untested, radioactive substances?    I was almost never turned down and everyone had a fun asking me about it.

I had two friends helping me out on the porch: Jen and Darren.   They brought their eleven-year-old daughter and her friend to trick-or-treat with my children, chaperoned by my husband and Uncle Jonathan.    Without them I would have been in trouble.   Darren handed out the candy and Jen snapped and inserted the glow sticks into the drinks and helped me hand them out.    

The drink itself was the most boring part of it all.   I tried so many things.  I wanted the drink to glow, but the options I had for consumable, glowing substances didn't make tasty drinks.   I wanted the drink to taste good, but anything with any color in the liquor and cordial department dampened the glow stick's glow dramatically.    After a lot of testing I ended up going the straight-forward route: white wine.   People thought it was great.   Lots of people didn't know what it was when they drank it at first; white wine out of context of a wine glass must be more difficult to place—especially when it's a sweet wine like the Moscato I was serving. 

I have to also thank my husband for his help in the endeavor.   It wouldn't have been as fun or as impactful without his ideas and contributions.   You can see all the hand-painted signs he made for me in the picture below.    He helped me with ideas and so much of the preparations but ultimately he didn't get to see any of it in action because he was out with the children going house-to-house.

It was a grand night.  I'm looking forward to next year already.

My son at the front door looking up at the glowing spider webs.

Tray of radioactive samples with their glow sticks, Batch 37 ready for the next victim, er, parent.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was, "Chase" the Transformer police car from the show, Transformers: Rescue Bots for Halloween this year.   He almost changed his mind to be Ironman at the last minute but I think he was happy with his choice.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was a Wincess for Halloween.   She was a green and purple witch that was also a princess she and my son decided a few weeks ago.   Princess+Witch = Wincess. She loved her outfit and was happy wearing it all night, including the had (which would not stay on).

Fitness Update:  Halloween at the gym.   I wonder if Don was harder on us because he suspected we'd all be eating candy later tonight?

Alternate Hand Clapping

I know we have bodily preferences, but I discovered one I hadn't noticed before during the ride to school today.  If you clasp your fingers together, either your left or right thumb will be on the top and that way of clasping you hands will feel, "right" as opposed to the other way.  

Sitting cross-legged and folding your arms across your chest are two other preferential positional things we tend to do as people.    I was clapping along to the, "If You're Happy and You Know It" song with my children and it occurred to me that I far prefer to clap with one hand on top (or relatively on top) than I do the other hand.     Strange I never noticed this before.

The Big Boy Update:  Pahmer is still with us.   Remember him?   He's back with a vengeance.   He is sometimes a fictional entity or perhaps just someone not in the room.  Sometimes one of us is Pahmer and sometimes he's a definite person, such as "the worker".    Pahmer has been visiting our house a lot of late.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  There is a house with some halloween blow-up decorations on our way out of the neighborhood.   There's a huge spider over their porch and stairway, a witch with a sign reading, "Witch Way" pointing to their house and then the not-very-scary Hello Kitty blow-up in their front yard.   My daughter likes to say, "hi kitty!"  when we drive by.   Today, my son informed her, "that's Hello Kitty".

Lady Godiva, Candy and Ice Cream

When I was eight-years-old my family went to England and Scotland for eight weeks.   It was an abroad program with a busload of college students from the women's college my mother taught at and a collection of teachers.   I had an absolutely fantastic time that summer.   I don't think there was a summer that could have even gotten close to that summer in the whole of my childhood from the perspectives of adventure and excitement.

I remember being on the large plane and going international for the first time at eight-years-old.   I remember the smells of a different country and the different accents of the people.   I remember the dorm rooms we stayed in and the brass rubbings my parents made at the burned-down church in Canterbury.    And I remember the candy and ice cream.

One of the first places we went was Coventry.   I don't know where we stayed or what we did while we were there but I remember there being a very large square with a big statue of a lady on a horse.   My parents told me all about Lady Godiva and her naked jaunt on the horse.    I thought she must have been cold and how convenient it was that she had so much hair as to cover up all the secret bits.

I didn't really care that much about Lady Godiva but there was an ice cream shop in that courtyard and the ice cream there was amazing.   I'd had lots of ice cream before, but something about this ice cream was different.  It had more of a vanilla flavor perhaps or maybe it was more creamy.   I don't remember today, but I know it wasn't like the standard ice cream I got at home and I liked it more.    I don't know if we got the ice cream once or more than once or even how long we stayed there, but the memory how ice cream tasted there and in other parts of England and Scotland somehow became associated with Lady Godiva.

It was during that summer that I also expanded my love of candy varieties.   I'd never had licorice all sorts before and when I tried them, I knew I was hooked.    So many shapes and flavors and all of them licorice.   How can you go wrong with that?   I was a huge licorice fan.

I buy least one package of all sorts each year as an adult and they always make me think of that summer in England and that naked lady on the horse.

The Big Boy Update:  My son got a new little transformer toy yesterday.   He had fun with it last night and was sad to leave it at home this morning.   When he got home from school he went over to the toy, picked it up and said to me, "this toy missed me."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter is very sound-sensitive.   Toilets flushing, blender's running, balloons being blown up, dogs barking and pretty much anything else she thinks might be loud.   She puts her fingers in her ears to prepare for a loud noise (even if we explain the broom sweeping won't be loud.   When she goes in for her hearing test, I'm not concerned about the results.

Fitness Update:  Lackluster performance by me at the gym today.   Or at least it felt so.   I think I need to go more often.   I've been slacking lately.

The Krispy Kreme Calorie Question

I wanted to get my children a small treat this afternoon while we were out.   I realized we were driving by a Dunkin' Donuts store on our way to pick up the dog and I realized the donut holes (or Munchkins as the chain calls them) would be just the right amount of treat I was looking for.   We stopped in, visited the bathroom and got in line.  

I asked the lady what quantities I could buy the munchkins in and was surprised at the answer.  I could get four, twelve, twenty or any number of dozen I wanted.   She told me I could really get any amount, as long as it was a multiple of two.   I asked, "so I could get just two?"  She said that yes, I could definitely do that.   I got twelve.   Two?  C'mon, you know I'm gonna eat a good portion of those twelve myself, right?

We got back in the car and I gave one to each of my children.   My son immediately started eating his.   My daughter decided it was, "yucky" because I suppose the sugar on the outside was a bit sticky.   My son asked for another one and as I handed it back to him I started to wonder how many calories were in these little things?

I could look it up most likely fairly quickly if I was at a long stop light or when we got to the veterinarian's office.   We can find nutritional information so quickly now.   It made me think of a time back before the year 2000 when several of us had a long discussion on donuts and calories.

The discussion was between my boyfriend back then, one of his office mates and his roommate.   This discussion wasn't about Dunkin' Donuts, but the Krispie Kreme glazed donut.   Someone (I don't remember who) said they had hear each donut was four-hundred calories.   "It can't be" some of us said.

There was internet galore back then, but the informational depth wasn't there.   We looked on their web site and there was no, "Nutritional Information" page there like there is on most restaurant's sites today.   We couldn't find much information by searching through search engines either (this was back when there were multiple, competing search engines—before Google dominated the market.

My boyfriend said, "I'll find out.  I'll email the company."   And so he did.  It took about a day, but he got back a very nice response from someone saying, "four-hundred calories?  Oh my, that is quite a lot.   You'll be glad to know our glazed donuts are two-hundred calories each.  I hope this helps answer your question."  

For years later at business events when someone would bring Krispy Kreme donuts in the morning, I would look at them and see two-hundred calories stamped across each one.  I still ate them.  Sometimes I would eat a lot of them.   One day in Chicago I specifically remember eating only Krispy Kreme glazed donuts for the entire day.    It was my fault...I was the one who brought them.

The Big Boy Update:  My son got out of bed at 6:57AM today.   I know this because he leapt out of his bed and landed on the floor in the room above us.   Three minutes later my alarm went off.   He came out on the bridge above and said, "mommy, what's that beeping?"   It appears my son doesn't need an alarm clock to get up on time.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  People are noticing my daughter's hair cut.   We've had lots of positive comments on it.   As much as I didn't want to cut it, I'm glad I did.

Fitness Update:  Four miles wedged in this afternoon.  Unexpected request from my neighbor in the quick hour she had from getting out of the office before having to pick up the girls.

Smunday

Today was Smunday.   It was technically Monday, but the day behaved like it was Sunday.   The children were out of school and we didn't have much to do, save hanging around the house in our pajamas for a large portion of the morning.  

My children got to eat their favorite weekend breakfast foods and there was a good bit of television that was on.   My son got cranky because the television was on too long, requesting it be turned off, but then when it was off, he wanted to watch more of the rescue pups show that was on.  

I didn't know what the rescue pups show was, but from the bit he saw of it he had absorbed the characters names and talked about them for the rest of the day.   I now know why advertising targeted at children is so successful.

Tomorrow will be Muesday.  It will be Tuesday, but it's going to feel like Monday as we all go back to our regularly-scheduled weekday routine.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has some allergies and he knows it from just the few interactions he's had.   It only took one time putting a cat bed on his head and he will tell you straight up he's allergic to cats.   He must be also allergic to mold spores like I am too because after playing with various things at the Scrap Exchange and touching his face, his eyes got terribly puffy and itchy.   Sorry for passing on my allergies to you, little guy.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  At a follow-up visit to the plastic surgeon about my daughter's chin wound, we talked about maybe needing a surgical correction after the wound has healed for six months.  It was hard to tell at first because there was a lot of abrasion around the cut, but it's easy to see the jaggedness of the scar line now.   It's not under her chin, it's right on the front as well.   We won't know what needs to be done until it's fully healed and that's fine for now.   We're scar reducing cream with SPF on it for now as it heals and fades out.