Updates and Odds/Ends

Item 1:  Hair has been styled.  Keep in mind, someone else colored, foiled, heat-set, washed, glazed, re-washed, conditioned, cut and blow-dried this mop earlier today.  I'm wondering how many days I can go without touching it, hoping the "do" will stay "did".  I read that Brooke Shields goes 5 days between shampoos, workouts notwithstanding.  I figure I can at least make it 'til tomorrow night's NC Theatre production of Miss Saigon, where I have to do some volunteer pimping.  If anyone touches my head, they will "miss" Saigon.  I think I just stole NCT's marketing tag line, but it fits.  Deal.

Item 2:  Pacifier Problem Redux

He found the paci drawer!  Baby Everett, the tiny terrorist, has reached that stage where no baby lock, gate or safety device can keep him from his quest to seek, conquer and destroy. Eight days after being weaned from his binky bent, he found the secret stash (all 9 of them!) in a random reconnaissance mission in the kitchen.  He absently popped one in his mouth, with the look of Mike Krzyzewski after a Duke basketball victory...a stonefaced "Duh, you were expecting something different?"!!!  I snagged the whole paci family in one frantic swoop, and threw them en masse into my closet -- behind the only doorknob he has yet to defeat.

He threw a three-year-old tantrum...18 months early!!    I created a diversion, quite possibly involving cash payments, and resolved to pack away the paci's for posterity...in the attic.  Tomorrow.

Item 3:  Still no "help wanted" signs at the Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin Robbins construction site.

That may be due to the absence of window panes, but I find that to be a minor technicality.  Duct tape, people.  

Item 4:  Sleep deprivation revisits.  With hubby back on the road, I find 500 things to do once the kids go to sleep, but I mostly end up gazing at the bag of Nestle's chocolate chips,  

counting the days until the end of Lent and the rekindling of my romance with sugar.  I surf,  I straighten, and I stare at the mountain of clean clothes I refuse to fold.  Isn't that why the laundry room has a door?

Item 5: The baby is rediscovering his overnight vocal prowess, with an uncanny ability to repeat the word "mama" more times than I would ever care to count.  

He screams it, sobs it, hollers it, barks it, blubbers it, moans it, then eventually whispers it as I stand just outside his door, peeking in with my good eye.  

The baby books say to allow this behavior, but it only works in our house when daddy is gone. Daddy would have reintroduced the pacifier by now.  

I catch a glimpse in the mirror as I stagger toward the stairs.  Deep, dark undereye circles.  But some damn nice hair.....