miss kitty fantastico goes domestic

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/RaeSpot/BreastfeedingBusinessCards.pdf

the greatest miracle one and the cow one are FANTASTIC!!!!

I finished my first friends-cut ... it was weird. I've always waited for people to unfriend me first, or done one person at a time as the situation came up. But there were a TON of dead journals on my FL and I just needed to do some spring cleaning. I mostly cut people who never ever update or people who do update and haven't commented on my journal in like, the last 6 months or so.

That said, if you've been cut and feel it was a mistake or didn't want to be, no worries. Say something and I'll add you back. I actually left more dead journals than I would have liked, but some of them belong to people I used to know IRL, and if they were to just randomly update again after a year + of not writing, I'd love to know about it ...

Ben just said "I'm giving Mama a hard tack"

I was ???? at it for awhile, then I sat back and watched what he was doing (trying to remove a half pot of coffee from the machine and pour it into a water bottle) and realized he what he meant.

A heart attack. He was saying "I'm giving Mama a heart attack."

And it was true! :-)

So apparently spring has passed us by. It's nice today, the computer said the high was like 77 or something. We were outside from 3 to 4 p.m. and let me tell you, it seemed warmer than that. We ate popsicles, pulled weeds, swept the deck and fed the squirrels. By the end of that we were just plain tuckered out.

And if that wasn't enough, it's supossed to be 90 tomorrow. Yeah, you heard that right. Last month it was still snowing, and now we're leap-frogging to 90 degrees!!!!!

I'd better go pick up Ben's swimming shorts from my MIL's house. I have a feeling that tomorrow morning's errands will include the purchase of a cute little splash pool to put back by the cherry tree. And maybe some sunscreen.

Anyone want to come over for a pool party? :-)

Ben is sick.

He is a snot factory. He is having potty accidents all over the place. And because he is sick, they are NOT fun to clean up, if you know what I mean.

And he is cranky and bored. And won't eat again.


I need a raise :-)

At Barnes and Nobel, we did the rush to the potty thing again. We get there, he pees and I get him some toilet paper for his drips. Next thing I know, he is trying to lean back and flush the potty while still sitting on it.

Splash.



Yes, Ben did indeed fall in the toilet. I had to strip him in the bathroom and dry his clothes under the hot air hand dryer while he played with the soap dispenser and the water in the sink. Thankfully no one came in for the entire time it took to get his shirt wearable.

We left shortly after.


The real question? Why do these things always happen to me?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Theoretically, they could happen to anyone, but they don't. They happen to me, over and over and over again. :-(

Yesterday when we picked up Ben from Grandma's, I asked him how his day was. His reply?

"We got you a neckwace Mama!"

"Shhhhh!" says Grandma.

"Happy Mother's Day Mama!"

"It's not today, Ben," says Grandma.

"It's OK," says me. "It can be today if he wants."


So I opened my present and card. It was a red glass heart necklace with little gold flecks inside. It's very pretty and shiny. Just the sort of thing that Ben would pick. And he decorated the card himself. All very sweet. But nothing compares to him randomly throughout the rest of yesterday and all through today busting out with "Happy Mother's Day Mama!"

It's so flippin cute!

I haven't shampooed my hair since last Tuesday. The only reason I used the poo then (at that point, it had been six days) was because I was trying to wean off of it slowly, so I didn't want to wait for the horrible detox symptoms to get unbearable before I used it.

Anyway, I shampooed with just a teeny tiny bit of my natural shampoo and my hair looked like crap for three days. Frizzies everywhere. Dry, brittle flyaways. The curls wouldn't form, wouldn't hold together at all. So that's it then, I guess I'm poo-free now, even if I feel like I want to die during detox, my hair still LOOKS better than it did before. And smells nice too. Just itches a wee bit. I'm sorry, did I say a wee bit? I meant, LIKE I'M GOING TO DRAW BLOOD FROM MY SCALP FROM THE SCRATCHING!!!!!!!

One other thing I've noticed is that with CO (that's the abbreviation for the curly girls method, "conditioner only") you really do have to shower pretty much every day. If I don't get my hair wet by the time 36 hours have gone by, it really starts to hurt. You know, like if you put it up on top of your head in a really tight ponytail while it was still wet, and let it dry that way, and then don't let it down for a really long time? When you finally let it down, it hurts, and the hairs all look weird at the roots because they want to keep going up, the way they dried.

But I used to be able to go a lot longer without getting my hair wet without it bothering me like this. 24-36 hours is a really short time to have the roots be hurting so much. And it's not from ponytailing. I'm wearing it down, or at least semi-down almost every day now.

Man this detox thing really sucks. At least it doesn't LOOK or SMELL as bad as it FEELS. Two weeks down, theoretically only one week to go.

Wish me luck!

I missed you internetz, but I was spending time with my family!!!! Wow :-)


We went to Aberdeen today. The real estate dude needs to be fired. I don't know if we will do it though, because it's not like there's anyone a lot better. But seriously, last month, Stephen told him that he was going to come down to get the lawn mowed and RED says, "I'll take care of it for you." We get there today and the grass is up to Stephen's hips. RED says "Yeah, the guy who does that retired. Sorry." And it didn't occur to you to tell us this? So we could come take care of it ourselves? WTF! The house has been shown three times since we dropped the price and all three times, it had a jungle yard and dead plants inside.

I guess RED isn't entirely incompetent though, because he did suggest taking the washer and dryer out of the bathroom. Apparently, people were complaining that it was too tight of a fit to get in, and I totally understand. It's the least user-friendly bathroom ever. Combine that with being a one-bathroom house, and ... well, you get the idea. If the washer and dryer had been IN the bathroom when we were looking, I don't know that we would have chosen this house either. Stephen complained that it was misleading to take them out, but hey, the house has to get sold right?

We also decided to dump some more money into the bathroom. We just lowered the price, so we can't do that again, but we can replace the nasty old sink, faucent and cabinetry and the crappy medicine cabinet mirror. We've spent only $80 so far, because we had to take the sink/canbinetry back. Why? Because it was clawfoot style and the fantastic people who owned our house before us cut the vinyl flooring AROUND the sink. So there is no floor under the cabinet that's already there. Nice.

Our debt is now down to about $13,000 and shrinking faster everyday. I'm striving so hard to stop spending like we are rich and just put all of Stephen's tips down on the credit card bill. It's really hard, but we're making so much progress.

We also found out that rental income (much like tip income) will not count for us to get approved for a mortgage. So if we decided to take it off the market and rent it out, we will have to rent ourselves since we STILL won't be approved to buy. LAME!!!!

I really want to be out of here by like mid-June. That's so soon people!!!!!!

Even though I worked my ass off today (do you even know what is under a washer and dryer?) I feel really really good. Better than I have in a long time. Because I got to actually do something that was putting me closer to my goal. I'm sick of hoping and praying and waiting. It sucks.

My mom and I watched the Kentucky Derby and I had Ben in my lap the whole time. He knew about horse racing from Backyardigans and kept saying "Yee-haw!" It was priceless.

It was a real exciting race, and my mom picked a favorite before it started, the only filly, Eight Belles.

We were excited when she came in second, though sad that she didn't win.

Cut to them interviewing the jockey of the winner, and you can see that a horse is down in the backgroud.

"Oh, no!" I say to Ben. "Somebody got hurt"

It was Eight Belles who fell just after finishing. It took forever before they would say what happened, but it turns out she broke both her front ankles, so they euthanized her. Right there on the race track, in front of my baby. He asked me if she would be OK and I lied to him because I'm a terrible mom and didn't want to start bawling all over the place and have no idea how I would explain "they killed her" to him anyway. I don't even understand it myself.

I'm sure a bunch of horsey people are about to jump in here and explain to me why it's a good thing to kill a horse just because her racing career is over, but I can't get over the injutice of it all. This is not the first lesson I want my child learning about death.

I hate the terrible twos. I hate them. No. Really.


Ben is currently throwing his fifth tantrum of the day. And it's only 9:30.

1. I don't want to go potty. (this ended in papa not letting him get up until he peed in the potty. it only took about two-three minutes, but he screamed the whole time.)

2. I want Mama to get out of bed, but I refuse to turn on the light like she asked me to. (this one ended in me turning on the light, pulling him in to bed with me and saying no one was going anywhere until he could calm down.)

3. I don't want to go potty. (this one ended him him peeing all over the living room carpet and getting a time-out for it. he was litterally one foot from his potty and already naked. i watched him squat and CHOOSE to pee on the floor.)

4. I wanted strawberry milk, not chocolate. (this one ended in me drinking all the chocolate milk, because he literally would not have even one sip.)

5. I don't want to have to sit in my high-chair to eat breakfast. Yes, I want the cereal with fresh strawberries on it that you were so kind to make for me, but because you've forced me to sit in my high chair, I'm just going to sit here and scream. I will not eat it. (this one is still in progress, but currently, the screaming has been reduced to him whining "Mama mama mama mama" over and over again. He still has not had one single bite of food for this whole morning though.)


Somebody put me out of my misery.


ETA: It's 9:54. Still no food. I shoved a bite of strawberries and cereal in his mouth and he spit it out. The screaming has picked back up again.

I called my MIL to see if she wants to deal with this so I can go do my errands that clearly he just cannot come along for. She has plans this morning, but said I could bring him by at naptime and she'd stay with him so I could go out and do stuff.

T-minus 2.5 hours.


I'm gonna need some earplugs.



ETA again: Ben's breakfast of choice was Wheat Thins Toasted Chip Veggie flavor crackers and Terriyaki Beef Jerky. Uhhh, OK. At this point, it's whatever works ...

This was supposed to be a photo of all four grandchildren, but by the time we got the camera out and were ready to take the shot, Kaela and Cameron had wandered off. So it's just Ryland and Ben. Taken some time last fall. Note the adorableness of Ben's blond hair.




A very long time ago, I promised a family portrait to katielovesjoel and never delivered. We did actually take the photo, but I just forgot where it ended up. So I finally found it the other day and here it is. I think we were dressed up for Rosh Hashanna. It was a Saturday in late September and we were headed to my grandmother's house, so that's what I came up with.

Also, note how long my hair was before I chopped it off in December. This is about as decent-looking as it ever got back then. It looks flat on top, but wavy throughout with no real defined curls ...

So, for those of you who requested a "before" shot for my curly-girl photos, this will have to suffice.




This last photo needs little to no cutline, because clearly its cuteness is worth a thousand words. So I'll just give it a nice little caption.

"Ben flossing in his sink-bath"

 

I was moping for days and days because I had so desparately wanted to have a weaning party for Ben and instead it ended up with him weaning cold turkey with us not knowing our last nursing was the last one until after it was over.

But it turns out that we DID have a weaning party, we just didn't know it at the time. On Friday morning Ben got tired of the tv and wanted to go outside. It was blechy out, of course, but he wasn't really interested in any other suggestions. No to art. No to a bath. Finally, I suggested cooking, and he lit up like it was Christmas.

So we went downstairs and picked out some "cupcakes" to bake (really Jiffy apple cinnamon muffins). We cracked eggs, we stirred the mix, we put the little muffin cup things in the pan. We baked them and then we had some lunch while they cooled. We each had a cupcake and then it was naptime. This was when he said "i don't want Mama side, I want some juice." I was SHOCKED, as this was out of left field, but wanted to go with it, as long as I could confirm from him that he wasn't going to throw a fit for Mama side after having the juice. As was previously mentioned, he agreed to everything except "I will go to sleep without Mama side." So I said he had to choose and he decided juice wasn't that important.

I layed down with him and we nursed. I counted to 60 in my head, and then let my mind wander for as long as possible. Ironically, mostly I just thought about weaning and how it seemed impossible since Ben is so hard to distract. I wondered how much crying I'd have to endure and how long it would take before he would be OK with not nursing.

All of these thoughts probably took another minute or two, at which point, I switched him sides and repeated the whole thing. I kissed him goodnight and we took a nap together, though in separate beds, because he has taken to kicking me until he wakes himself up. He naps MUCH better by himself these days.

After he woke up, the weather was drastically better, so I threw him in the car and drove him to my most favorite place in the whole world, Mt. Baker park in Seattle. I hadn't been there in years, and had never taken Ben at all. It's like I knew it would be a special day.

We explored the grassy area, and then he took off toward the water. I held his hand while we crossed Lake Washington Boulevard, and we got to the docks and the beach. He looks around for a bit, waves to the ducks and then says "Mama! Where's the park?" I laugh, realizing that he means where are the toys, and tell him that he went the wrong way! We use the potty and then walk all the way back up the hill to where the kids play structures are. He swings and slides and digs some, but mostly watches the other kids. Most of the moms seem to know each other. One was nice to me though, and we had a nice conversation about potty training. :-)

When park time was over, we went to say happy birthday to my grandma, only to find out she was still in Arizona. So we left her a note and headed home.

It was a lovely party for Ben and me. That's who the party should be for anyway. No one else was involved in nursing really, so no one else needed to come to our party. It was a great way to embark on our new adventures of mama and a big boy.

The end.

I have no excuse. I am lazy. I have a camera. I have a laptop. I have some spare time. I have an SD card. I have internet access. I have a cute child. And yet, this journal remains 99 percent text only.

I don't know about you guys, but MY kid is growing up so fast, I think I blinked and missed half of it. Coiciding with his weaning, Ben has also stopped saying one of our favorite things, "nyum nyum." Last night, he was drinking bathwater and Stephen asked him if it was "nyum nyum" and he said, "No, yum-MY" and we both had the sadface. Stephen was like "and we never even got it on video."

So we took one today. To capture all the cute that he is now, before we lose even more of it.

And when I went to upload it, I saw that the camera was FULL of stuff I meant to get around to and just never did anything with until I eventually forgot about it. So here you go, some videos for your enjoyment :-)

This is today's video of Ben eating lunch. He is almost 2 and a half. :-)





Does anyone remember my post about our Halloween? Where I was so pissed that we didn't get any pictures because Stephen was so busy using up all the camera's batteries on a video? And then no one ever saw the video?

Well, here it is. The video of Ben in his Halloween costume. He is 22 months.

Ben is weaned.

It has been days since we nursed. 56 hours. 56 and a half hours.

I suffered a little pain last night, but even though I was uncomforatable and felt full, when I went to express, I found no milk at all. I was going to press some into a cup for him and couldn't even get one drop for him. Not one single drop.

So far, he's been asking at all the usual times, but readily accepting juice or water and snuggles and attention. No tears (from him, lol) and no protests.

Tonight, I thought maybe since we had some peaceful time together, for the first time in several days, we might have a goodbye nursing. Just a short time, so I would have a memorable last time and he would know it was the end. I told him it was time to say goodbye to Mama side because Mama side is for babies and little kids and he is a big kid now, like Uncle Daniel. So he took his hands and patted each breast and gave each one a kiss and said "Bye bye Mama side. Can I have some juice please?"

At least I waited until I was out of the room to start crying.

It's not that I don't believe in child-led weaning. I do (mostly!) and plan to do so with my next and final child. But with Ben, I wanted him weaned before it was time to have another baby. So I'm weaning him. But I always said that the best plan of all would be if Ben did self-wean and it just happened to be on my convienient time schedule.

We're down to two nursings per day, and it's almost May.

Also, Stephen really wants to go away together sometime in July or August. I posted about this in the breastfeeding community, and it was suggested to me to do a trial run. We would leave Ben with Grandma, go out for the night, and he THINKS he's spending the night at her house, as he's seen us leave. But really, we come home after fun was had (midnightish? 1 a.m.? whatever) and sleep there, but in a different room. Grandma will cosleep with Ben, at her offering, not at my request. It's what she's done for all her grandchildren when they were small.

So we'll be there if there is a crying emergency, but if it goes well, and we weren't needed, then maybe I can actualy have a GOOD TIME on our getaway, instead of contantly being worried about how Ben is doing.

All this is coming up now because there's a party at a bar for someone at Stephen's work tomorrow night, so we decided that tomorrow will be our test run night.

And I decided that since it's so close to May anyway, I would have tomorrow night be Ben's first night of no more bedtime nursing. It makes sense, as he knows Grandma doesn't have Mama side and doesn't ask her for it.

Cut to today, at naptime, Ben says "I don't want some Mama side, I want some juice."

After a long conversation, we got all the way to, "Ben, I want you to say, 'I will go to sleep with no Mama side' " and he couldn't do it. He was planning to have juice first and then Mama side to go to sleep.

So I told him he had to choose, and he decided to forgo the juice.

But then, AGAIN, tonight, he said, "I don't want some Mama side, I want some juice."

And the ritual began again, but this time, he did say "I will go to sleep with no Mama side. I want juice."



And he did.

No tears. No asking for it. No changing his mind.


We talked about Mama side for awhile, how it's for babies and little kids. Big kids don't have Mama side. Uncle Daniel used to have Mama side, but he stopped when he was 2. And Landon used to have Mama side, but he's a big kid now. And Alex used to have Mama side, but he's a big kid now. And now Ben is a big kid who can swing really high on the swings without feeling scared. Then, we read three stories, drank like a litre of juice and I cuddled with him, sang him a lullaby and he went to sleep. He never cried. He never got up.



And now I'm wondering if that's just the night nursing gone, or if it's cold-turkey from here. I mean, crap, if it's OK with him, it's OK with me!!!!

Advice, well-wishes, and/or exclimations of shock and amazement are all welcome.

I think I have Ben's bedwetting mystery figured out, if not solved. The very first time he wet the bed was when he was either sick or teething really bad. Feeling really miserable. And it wasn't his first accident of that day, either.

Anyway, when he woke up at like 3 a.m. and said he was all wet, I'm pretty sure I said something witty like "Oh no! Ben's bed is all wet! I guess you'll have to sleep with Mama tonight."

Skip to last night, Stephen decided to put Ben on the potty when we went to bed, about 1 a.m. There was some crying, but he did pee a bit. Well, at 6 a.m. he comes to bed saying he peed. Stephen sighs and says something pissy and I say, pick him up and check him. Sure enough, Ben hadn't peed in his pants. They were dry. I tell him he needs to use the potty, and he says, (pay attention) "I don't want to use the potty. I just want to sleep with Mama."

So I pick him up and put him on the potty and nothing. I don't doubt that he COULD have gone if he wanted, but he did try some, and I know that it was enough that had he been bursting at the seams, he wouldn't have been able to hold it in.

This is when he starts bawling. He is glancing in the general direction of his bed and saying that it's wet.

OH!!!!!

I say, "Ben, you can come sleep with Mama if you want to. If you wake up at night and are lonely for Mama and missing Mama, it's OK to just come to the big bed. You don't have to be wet."

We all climb into the big bed. Ben cuddles with me and goes to sleep.

When morning comes, I put him on the potty and he pees like a racehorse. A thousand times more pee than he has recently been able to hold at night.

So. Mystery solved. But will we see changes?

Updates to come.

On the days that he doesn't wake up in tears asking for strawberry milk, our usual routine is to get up in the morning and Ben sits on his potty while I turn on the tv for him and run to the bathroom myself. Then I put the dog out and we watch a show (or he does and I use the computer). When it's over, he asks for breakfast and depending on what he wants, we maybe eat at the table (cereal, oatmeal, yogurt) or maybe eat in the living room (toast, banana, english muffin). If he did have his strawberry milk (nursing replacement, more emotional than food for him) then he usually isn't hungry for an hour or more after we get up.

Well this morning, he'd peed his bed again (never brag on lj, never brag on lj, never brag on lj) so he didn't need to use the potty. I told him to sit tight while I used the bathroom, but forgot to turn a show on for him before I left. I realized that while I was gone and feared destruction when I returned. But I ended up finding him SITTING IN HIS HIGHCHAIR, waiting for me to bring him some breakfast. O_o

I blinked a few times, rubbed my eyes, pinched myself, and then told him how proud I was that he was doing such good waiting. I let him have his "colored cereal" (fruity Cheerios) for breakfast and he had all of his bowl and some of mine as well. Holy hungry Batman!

Awhile later, he asked for food again, so I gave him a banana to eat while I showered and he watched Diego. When I came back, the banana was half-eaten, and half smooshed on my mom's couch. Really rubbed in, too. Lovely. The best part is that Ben is whining that he needs a bath because "I got banana on my body" ha ha ha. I wiped him off, told him no bath, and put him on the potty because he hadn't gone since his accident. A few minutes later, he comes back and tells me that he peed and could he have a chocolate and some juice. I give him the M&M and get him some juice. I even specifically tell him to be careful with it and not to make a mess.

Yup, I come back from letting the dog in and he's in the middle of dumping it out onto the carpet.

I take it from him. It's less than five minutes before he asks for something else. I tell him NO MORE FOOD! I'm sick of giving him food because he's bored and then watching him make a mess with it. I'm in the middle of a long slow process of getting us both ready to go to the store and he's driving me crazy.

So, despite all his whining and even asking nicely, I didn't give him anything to eat or drink between 9:30 and 11:15 a.m. OHNOEZ, CHILD ABUSE!!!!!!!!

He's settled down a lot in the car, and asks very nicely if we can have fridays and chicken nuggets with dip for lunch. I tell him that if he cooperates at the store and does good listening, we can.

He is amazing at the store and I am very proud. I get some lavender oil and a spray bottle for my hair, plus some clips, and a few other things we needed, like milk. I also see that pears are on sale, so I get four.

As we are getting into the checkout line, I turn around to discover than Ben has climbed out of his seat and into the main cart, taken a pear out of the bag, and is chowing down. I pay for the other three pears and then use one of them to pay for the fourth one and let him eat. He is eating, not making any sort of a mess at all.

By the time I've paid and we are out of the store, he has eaten the WHOLE ENTIRE PEAR. Down the the core, all the way around. He is juicy of course, but no pear pieces or spit out chewed up parts are anywhere to be found.

I guess maybe he was hungry after all? We went to Arby's and he had his chicken nuggets (actually popcorn chicken) and his curly fries and some juice. Not just a respectable lunch, but a quantity I would have been quite pleased with even if he had not had the pear.

My kid is an eating machine!!!


But we may have to ban food in the living room if he continues to play with it so much. :-)

Be sure and read the previous entry before commenting on this one!!!!! 

PS: Yes, I took these myself in the bathroom on my cameraphone. Best quality ever? No. But still, curls!!! :-)


 



A close-up of just the curls.

 

But if you've ever met me or even just seen a photo of me, you already know that. Despite my best efforts to hide it or ignore it for a large portion of my life, I am ready to embrace it. I am a Curly Girl.

I always have been and I always will be.

(Hey, what did you think I was going to say?!?!)


Anyway, about a month ago I followed some interesting links in the naturalliving community to find out about no-poo, and from there, discovered curly_girls!!!! The community explains that it's based on a book, so I ordered it and it finally came today!!!

I will try to be brief about my curly revolution, (ha ha) but basically, the book explains that curly isn't just a hair type or style, it's a state of mind. And a lot of curly girls have self esteem issues about their hair and themselves because they were teased for being different. And mainstream hair care is all designed for straight girls. It doesn't work for us, and we get fed up with frizz and try to go straight and that doesn't work either and we either give up or die trying to have straight hair. (Straightening products and blowdrying are HORRIBLE for your hair.)

Want to know what else is horrible for your hair, especially if you're a curly girl? Shampoo.

No kidding. Some of the stuff in the book I already knew, just from actually having curly hair and paying attention. No. 1 lesson. Curly girls cannot wash their hair every day. Most know this. Some lie about it, because in America it's ZOMG, so gross! not to wash your hair every day. But I found that mine really only needed to be washed about three times a week.

Well hell, now I've learned what's actually in shampoo, from the no-poo people and from curly girls, and I'm going to try and wean down and maybe off of it. See, they put these nasty stripping chemicals in it that causes your head to go bananas and over-produce oil. Well, then you feel oily and shampoo again. It's an addiction. It's the same as the softlips people who put drying agents in their lip balm so you'll be addicted to it.

I learned the names of the nasty chemicals that are in all commercial shampoos, and I went to the natural foods store and bought a gentler shampoo. The curly girls author says that this is the chemical usually found in baby shampoos, so I checked Ben's. Nope. His has the harshest of the nasty ones. Great.

Anyway, so I got a gentle shampoo and some natural conditioner with no ingredients that end in -cone. It took a half hour of reading bottles to accomplish this, but I'm pretty happy with my choices, I think. (Updates to come after actually USING them, lol!)

So I'm going to go down to washing my hair shampooing twice a week and then once a week and then maybe every 10 days and then maybe no-poo. It's not that you live with gross oily smelly hair. It's that you don't use SHAMPOO to wash it. No-poo people use a baking soda and water mixture. Curly girls use that, or a brown sugar and conditioner mixture. Anything to keep the oils from being stripped. It's not the foam in your shampoo that cleans your hair anyway. That's just there for marketing.

The curly girls lady describes that as long as you wash with water and scrub your scalp, your hair won't smell gross. It's the actual washing action that cleans your hair, like the agitator on a washing machine.

There is a two to three week transition period (esp. if you quit the poo cold turkey) where your hair freaks out and just keeps making more and more and more oil because that's what it's always done. It takes a while of gentle cleansing to get back into the natural balance. She does recommend conditioning everytime you shower though.

Personally, I'm not that interested in having mega-gross hair for three weeks, so that's why I'm using the natural poo and weaning down slowly. If I'm happy with how it's going, I'll stop at whatever seems to work for me.

I read the book while I was in the bath today (Ben was napping) and didn't have my new stuff yet. So I used my old chemically grosso conditioner to wash my head and did not use shampoo. (One of the things in the book is that your scalp is skin and needs to be cared for like skin. Your hair is entirely different, and needs different care.)

I did my hair like she said with a little bit of gel and no blowdrying or ponytailing. I have to say, it looks AMAZING!!!!

It does itch a tiny bit, but she says that's OK. If it itches, scratch it. You're helping exfoliate the dead skin cells without any chemicals at all!


One of the most poignant parts of the book (if you're not a curly girl, you probably have no idea how a hair book could be emotional or poignant, but if you are, I bet you get it) was a photo of a woman who had her hair pulled back into a straight low ponytail. There was a black censoring rectangle over her eyes, as if she was so embarassed at how bad she looked in this photo that the only way she'd be willing to let them use it is if she couldn't be identified. And she did look very terrible. And then in shock and horror, I realized that's how I wear my hair every single day. I never noticed how bad it looked on me. But on her, it was so ugly!!! I looked in the mirror.

Yes. I was that ugly too.

I could go on and on about how it's this weird sprial, that you think you can't look good so you don't even try and then by not trying, you're saying that you don't care, and then you feel so smug next to the "vain" women who fuss over their looks. You think, I have more IMPORTANT priorities in my life than primping and preening.

But what kind of example are you setting for your family/children if you don't think you're worth some care? Not hours a day and hundreds of dollars. But more than dollar store shampoo and a scrunchie for the rest of your life ...

The thing that's slightly different for me from many of the curly girl stories in the book, is that I have seen my hair look nice, and DO like my curls when they behave. But before now, it was always on a whim and a prayer and usually just plain old dumb luck. My hair did it's own thing, and if I wanted it to look nice for some special occasion, well, it would think about it and get back to me.

I hope this is the begining of a new, happy, pretty, confident me.

Curly girls of the world, unite!!!!!

ETA: Note new icon!!!!