Christmas 2011

We had a lovely Christmas with 35 or so of Jason's relatives for Christmas brunch, followed by a small gathering with my folks at our house. But I was focused on being present rather than on documenting everything, so we didn't even get a family picture this year. But I did capture a few shots.  

 Dylan checking out the Santa figurine at Jason's cousin's house that was the same size he is...

Me and Ava, who asked to have her hair blow dried for the special occasion...

 Which worked out well when she opened the gift that got the biggest squeal: an American Girl doll with straight hair too. The matching dresses came from Ross a couple months ago. It's a line called Dollie and Me, which is toddler and preschooler-sized outfits with matching doll size dresses. My agony over the decision of whether to spring for the doll and if so, what hair type is worth a separate post.

And I didn't get a shot of Dylan with his two favorite gifts: a Thomas the Train talking caboose that can run on his little wooden train set with the other magnetized cars, and a Thomas backpack that can also be pulled on two wheels. It's what he uses for toting around his birthday gift matchbox cars, trains, and these two dinosaurs, which he likes to hold facing each other while roaring, as if they're have a steel cage pose-off in the WWE. Which gives me an idea: man bags for boys. It could happen.

Unbeknownst to him, he picked all of his gifts a couple nights before during a Target run. Unlike Ava, who has fully fallen prey to the marketing juggernaut of commercials during kids shows and basically asks for everything that is shown on TV, Dylan still doesn't get what all the fuss is about and can't verbalize his wants exactly either.

With Ava's requests, we simply say, "You'll have to put that on your list and see if Santa brings it." Since she doesn't read or write yet (beyond her name and individual letters), we might as well say "write an app that will download those to daddy's iPad." But it's bought us some time, since she usually forgets about it within minutes, or until the next commercial or visit to a store featuring one of the coveted items.

With Dylan, I simply took them to the toy aisles in Target and watched what he was drawn to. I already knew anything Thomas the Train would be a win, but watching him beeline for certain items helped. And when he refused to put certain ones down (like the backpack and dinosaurs) until I could distract him or enlist Ava to distract him, I knew we had winners, which I then furtively stuffed under grocery items in the cart while his back was turned. I was like the David Blaine of toy shopping. And he was none the wiser Christmas morning.

Soon after Dylan's birthday earlier in the month, I asked Jason what he wanted to do for him for Christmas.
"I don't know yet but he's getting the full deal," he said rather forcefully. Seeing my blank look he explained, "My birthday was right before Christmas too and I always got that BS 'This gift is for your birthday and Christmas' line. I'm not doing that to him."

"Mm-hmm: basically you got hosed because your birthday wasn't some other month besides December," I replied.

"Exactly," he said. "And it's total bull." Clearly, this is still a sore subject and I'd never realized how much because I've always done dual gifts for him. Your birthday is special and separate from other celebrations, whether it's in April or the day after Christmas. So we did get Dylan several nice little gifts.

Yet all in all, this Christmas seemed to reflect the still-challenging economy and our interest in getting away from gift overload and spending more time with each other rather than money on things we don't need and will just be looking to purge later. It felt right-sized.

And we will be purging the kids' things anyway in the next month or so because they're outgrowing many of their infant and toddler toys. They will hopefully be loved by some other kids soon, freeing up valuable toy box real estate for the Christmas and birthday items.

I hope your family's holiday celebrations were just right for your needs too.

Real big boy haircut

The battles to brush and comb Dylan's hair have been becoming more frequent. Also, his penchant for dropping fistfuls of sand into it while playing have left us waking up on top of gritty sheets some mornings after he climbs into our bed in the wee hours. So we decided to take it all off this morning.

Before... 

We had to tag-team to get the clippers even close to Dylan's bobblehead.

It took several passes with successively smaller clipper guards. 

 Needless to say, Dylan hated the buzz of the clippers and the click of the scissors and struggled off and on the whole time, in between the few quiet moments we finagled by putting Caillou, Dora and Diego videos on my Nook Color or letting him play toddler puzzle games on my Android phone.

But check out the after picture! Who is that big kid?!

And you can really see the resemblance with J. now.

Dylan on the left, age 21 months. J. on the right, 35+ years ago at Disneyland. Genes are a funny thing. 

Saturday salon day: 1st haircut

After three and a half years, it was finally time to get Ava's hair trimmed. We've been dealing with frequent snags even with conditioner, so we headed to the shop of our family hookup: my husband's cousin's wife, who is a hair stylist.

Even with her eight year old cousin helping and trying to entertain her, Ava was too busy crying and trying to climb out of the hair wash chair, so we didn't get any shots of that. But after the wash and blow dry, she sat very still as her curly tresses were flat ironed.

Followed by the trim.

Dylan wandered about trying to sweep up hair. Sweeping is one of his favorite activities and he was elated to find a tiny broom and dustpan set seemingly made just for him, oblivious to the transformation underway nearby. And voila...

Seriously straight, big girl hair. Ava looks kinda bummed in the pictures, especially compared to her reaction to the home blowout I did a few months ago. But by the evening, she'd come around. "Can you help me wrap up my pretty hair?" she asked. You betcha little one.With head bands and ponytails during the day and wrapping at night, it lasted several days this time, sans rat's nest effect.

Love, peace and hair grease

I thought having a boy would mean 'fewer' hair-related activities. I was wrong. I've written before about Ava and Dylan's hair care process. We added something new to the repetoire this week.

Braids!

 Ava had her first braids when she was almost two years old. So Dylan beat her to the punch a bit.

 Like father, like son with the afro pick action.

Full, post-braid, picked out glory. Like Bootsy, baby!

Hair affair

Hair is big around here. Both kids were born with full heads of hair, which my aunt says runs in my side of the family, and J. has had a catalog of coifs over the years, ranging from the current short, clean cut 'do, which he's growing out, to twists, braids, puffy afro and more.

I'm currently sporting a long, relaxed hairdo down to my shoulder blades, courtesy of two semi-close together pregnancies and related hormones, and the retirement of my longtime stylist. She was originally from Canada where apparently the word "trim" means cut off an inch and a half, thereby negating efforts to grow it out.

I've written before about the process of managing Ava and Dylan's hair day to day. Now Dylan's trying to comb his 'fro just like dad.

And this week, Ava asked for her hair to be blown out instead of styled wet.

Diana Ross-esque results below.

She was so busy dancing around and twirling it was hard to catch her on camera. Note to self: learn to use sport mode on camera. Also: replenish supply of headbands and save blowouts for weekends. Because the next day, after spending the morning playing at school outside in the wind, her hair looked like a rat's nest. A very, bouncy, rat's nest.

Halloween preview

Ava's went to a Halloween Carnival a week ago, which made things a lot less harried and sugar-fueled on the actual day. In honor of the recession and her limited long term memory for an event 1/3 of her life ago, we recycled her bumblebee costume from last year.

She asked excitedly, "Do I get to wear my bumblebee costume again?!"  Why yes! Yes, you can. And she had just as much fun buzzing around again. Look at that smile: don't fake wings and tulle scream fun pretty much any day of the year in almost any setting?

But check out that pumpkin. A little creepily over-excited, don't you think? Like it's ready to take a bite out of her head. Or maybe it's just amazed by her blow-dried, flat-ironed tresses, which she requested out of the blue that morning.

It's as if she said, "What is the attire for ye olde carnival? Festooned and bejeweled? Ah, well, simple ponytails would be gauche. Let us go forth with a more, shall we say,  substantive coif. Something more befitting a bee. A queen bee!"

Actually, she just said, "I want my hair straight! And down!" Regardless, that pumpkin is all, "Say whaaat?! Yeeeahhh gurl: that 'do is DONE!" Yeah, in my mind, the pumpkin is channeling every character Tracy Morgan ever played on SNL.

So after explaining the whole candy and doorbells and costume thing and seeing her accept it as plausible, I think I could make up just about any crazy "custom" and pass it off as real. Like, "Hey Ava, get some yogurt and string cheese. We have to go put these on people's windshields for the Dairy Fairy. She'll pick them up and leave a carton of Baby Yogurt under your pillow tonight!"

I mean really, is that any less plausible than the tooth fairy and trick or treat backstories? Clearly, I may not be the best one to impart these childhood fables, what with my lack of disbelief suspension and all.

Here is how we spent the actual Halloween: grocery shopping. I know: the paparazzi had a field day! (Ha!)

It was pretty cool to see that Dylan's finally big enough to sit in this kiddie cart without falling over or out, despite Ava's periodic efforts to steer both wheels at once. Check out his pose: it's like he's in NASCAR and gunning for the inside lane.
 
But note to store shelf stockers: if you're going to install racks at shoulder level that jut out into the aisle with toddler-sized bottles of spices, you're just asking for someone to have to utter the words "cleanup on aisle 12" over the PA system at some point during your shift. Just sayin'.

Hope you had a fun-filled day!

Tips on doing the 'do (hair do)

A friend is new foster mom to a toddler girl who is African American. She mentioned that she is struggling with doing her girl's hair and finding products that work well. She thought I might find her predicament comical, and I do, but only because I'm familiar with the challenge: African American hair care can be difficult, even for black folks! Have you read any of the hullaballoo about Chris Rock's hair documentary "Good Hair?" Who knew hair care could be a minefield. That aside, as any hair care expert will tell you, getting a good result is all about the products.

I get lots of compliments and questions about my daughter Ava's masses of super soft fine curls. It's gorgeous but takes some work, so for others who might be dealing with the same thing, like my friend, here's how we manage her mop.

The products are the key. Case in point, my husband called me at work one day a few months ago to say, "We may need to cut this girl's hair: I washed it but it's so tangled I can't get a comb through it, she's crying. It's just a hassle."
Me: "Did you put conditioner on it?"
Him: "Conditioner?"
Yeah, that stuff that makes it easy to comb. After pointing him to my plain old Pantene conditioner, he calls me back: "This stuff is the hit! The comb is sliding through like a hot knife through butter!" Dear Proctor and Gamble: feel free to use that in your next marketing campaign: Pantene: like a hot knife through butter!

So my routine with Ava is when I wash her hair (baby shampoo or whatever baby body and hair wash we have. Which one doesn't seem to matter much at this point), I follow with whatever conditioner I'm using (Pantene Nature Fusion Smooth Vitality now). I squeeze as much water out of the hair as possible before putting it on mainly the ends, not the scalp, because the scalp doesn't need it and it can sting if it drips in the eyes.

Chin up, head back - 33 months

Then I just part it in sections if needed and comb it through with one of those detangling combs w/the curved teeth, starting at the ends and working up to the scalp, rinse ("chin up, head back" is our mantra, because of the eye issue), then squeeze hair with the towel to dry, rather than rubbing, which will tangle it up again.

Dollop of Carol's Daughter Hair Milk

We finish up with a dollop of Carol's Daughter Hair Milk rubbed in my palms and smoothed/combed through her hair like the conditioner. Then comes the fun part: hairdos! Ava's partial to wearing hers loose with a headband, which is easy. However it does mean more work the next time you wash, because sitting in car seats, napping, etc. smooshes/tangles the curls again. But that's life.

Dylan has very similar hair texture, so he gets the same treatment, minus the conditioner and hair accessories.

Dylan - 8 months

Slick kid

After a dollop of Hair Milk, we comb through his hair to remove any tangles, then brush his hair slick and he's ready to go.

With Ava, sometimes I wash her hair and simply put it in a big ponytail high on her head (for sleeping ease), and wrap it. Then the next day, I just finger-comb the curls loose in the ponytail or untie her hair and comb through with my fingers. Throw on a headband or clips at the front and she's good to go.

When we do her bath at night rather than in the morning, we wrap her hair tightly with a silky scarf so it'll stay smooth overnight and just unwrap and go in the morning.

My mom usually does tight, braided ponytails on Ava. I'm less keen on all the braiding and usually go for the fastest finish: spiral twists of each section which just takes twirling each segment around my finger all the way to the end. Oodles of options.

And Ava gets involved organizing and fiddling with all the hair accessories (I looked up and saw about 23 elastics on her ankle once), which can keep her occupied while I work. We try to wash it every 3-4 days, depending on what she's been doing and how messed up it's gotten.

Luckily, Ava came out with hair, so everyday since birth has entailed at least brushing and fiddling with her hair, so she's accustomed to sitting still for the process.

Ava - 7 months

Plus, she's become quite the girly girl, so she now asks if I can "make her hair pretty" each day. But sometimes she'll play with some toy or watch a kids show on YouTube on my phone while I comb, part and cajole her hair into place as shown here.

It sounds more complicated than it is. Usually it takes between 5 and 15 minutes to do after her bath. Why bother? Partly, it's because I remember being a little girl out and about with my mom and aunt and seeing some other girl with wild, unkempt hair. "Look at that," my aunt said derisively, tsk-ing and shaking her head. "Now why would that child's momma send her outside like that, looking like, 'Who done it and why'?. She ought to know better. If you're not going to take care of a child, why even have one?"

Ava with wild bed head - about 13 months

More than 30 years later, I still remember that. Ava's too young for that backstory, but when she asks why we need to do her hair, I tell her, "Because I love you and care about you and how you are presented to the world and I want you, and anyone who sees you, to know that you are loved and cared for, from head to toe."

I hope I'm not giving her a complex, but it's true!And as my husband explained, "By showing that we value our kids, we are teaching them what that looks and feels like so that they will recognize when others are not doing that, and hopefully they will walk away." Smart guy, even if girly hairdos are not his forte.