She got her hair trimmed this last weekend, finally agreeing that perhaps the Jan Brady wasn't the look she wanted, and ended up allowing our long suffering stylist to cut chin length layers that taper to the full length in the front. As we were leaving the salon, the stylist mentioned that she could use a straightener to get a smooth, polished look.

Now, I have a straightener. And I can only successfully straighten about 1/4 of my hair before I get bored or lazy or make the ends go crazy or burn myself. My daughter knows this. She's seen the fallout before. She's smelled the singed hair before. She's on to me.

When I ambushed her in the bathroom a few nights ago, wielding the straightener and wanting to show her how it worked, she cringed away from me.

I demonstrated on my own hair first. "Look, it gets all smooth and shiny, like Barbie Hair!" I told her.

She scoffed at me. "Like I want synthetic-looking plastic hair that smells burned, Mom."

I talked her into letting me try it. I did one or two small sections, and didn't scorch anything. The next section, I decided to show her how she could introduce a bit of wave by slowly rolling the straighter over as you make you way down the strand of hair.

Except, you know, I turned it the wrong way, and ended up giving her a nice crimp right at the level of her eyebrow. By the time I released the hair from my smoking hot torture device, she was hooting with laughter and mocking my skills.

We laughed for a good five minutes.

It was painful to watch. It made me so glad that I never shopped for a bridal dress (and that I never shop by committee.) Dress after dress, criticism after criticism, from mothers, sisters, friends, relatives, while the bride-to-be stands on a pillar, deflating and despairing of ever finding something that will please the crowd.

As with reality TV, there's always some backstory on these women designed to pull your heart strings or provoke a reaction of some sort. Mostly, I just felt anger and frustration.

Would I benefit stylistically from having others telling me "Oh honey, no." on a regular basis? Yes.
Would I benefit emotionally from being tough-loved into a kinder silhouette? No.

I don't know if I had such a visceral, negative reaction to the Bridal Smackdown show because of my own issues with the extra 60 pounds I'm carrying around with me, but I do know that although I can take constructive criticism about my appearance, I could never endure what those women were dealing with from people who were "just trying to help."

Like the Wicked Queen in Snow White, I just want everyone to tell me I'm gorgeous. Or say nothing. Save the constructive criticisms for people who are less likely to poison you for your trouble.

When I look at her, I see beauty, intelligence and humor spark across her features as she pouts and snarls into the glass. I wonder what she sees?

While watching a movie last night, my daughter identified herself with the ditzy afghan hound that gets beaned in the head and goes, ow, Frisbee! (at 49 seconds on the video)

She also sees a lot of herself in Katie, the, uh, charming yellow fluffball in the following:

I look at her and I see smart, pretty, funny, stubborn, talented and outgoing. And yet, she sees herself as the goofball in the scene. The socially awkward one. The ditz. She identifies with the quirky characters. She considers herself to be quiet.

At home, she's the outgoing alpha sibling. At school, her teachers call her shy, and tentative. With me, she's got either a thousand things to discuss or absolutely nothing to share.

I know what I see when I look at her, but I wonder. What does she see?

Anyway, they've somehow become part of our breakfast menu around here, sauteed in butter for a crispy, crusty finish. I am telling myself it is no worse than toast or cereal for breakfast.

Also, milk mustaches FTW!

He's totally the acknowledged family expert on all things dinosaur, like, duh. So when my daughter started nit-picking his information sources, he got a bit peeved.

"Look, I have studied this, and I know I'm right and I'm so right I could teach a class on how right I am. I could found a whole dinosaur university. In your face!"

My husband seized on the whole "University of In Your Face" right away, and we had a good time for a minute, discussing possible ways you could work that into a conversation.

Oh, I graduated with honors from the University of IN YOUR FACE. Me? Oh, I had a double major - dinosaurs and IN YOUR FACE.

My oldest announced that the rival school was Your Mama University. Of course it is.

Look how lucky I am. My kids want to name their Sarcastic University in honor of my stellar parenting. IN YOUR FACE.

Oh. Now I know why people drink this stuff. And while I'm sure that this Trader Joe's Chai is like the International Flavored Coffees in a tin that were my introduction to exotic coffee beverages (for which I still have a soft spot) in that it is laden with artificial crap, and totally not "real" chai, it's good.

Also, I'm wired now.

IKEA!

These photos brought to you by the letter I, and also by meatballs. And snowballs.

I've been a bit paralyzed this last year, with a list of must-dos that outstripped the energy and will power at my disposal. There's been so much good in this last year for me, personally, but I still am struggling with some of the health issues that continue to be a big factor in my energy level. Bah, thyroid. Boo, sleep apnea. Meh, sedentary lifestyle.

So, actually I have something to aim for. I want to get my energy up this year. I want to WANT to push harder, play harder, challenge myself.

Obviously, the recipe for energy is eating well, exercising often, getting enough sleep and taking the time to recharge through self-fulfilling activities. This was so much easier when I was young, single, broke and able to be selfish with my time.

My oldest was telling me some long drawn out story about her friend, in this class, where they do this thing, and she said this other thing, and then her friend said this OTHER thing and...

I looked up, noticed we were travelling "E" and let out a howling EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE to the consternation of my children. They quickly caught on, however, and soon we were travelling SSSSSSSSSS
and SEEEEEE (we're pronouncing it "Saaaaaaaay.")

The good news is we never ended up traveling west, because I don't know how we could resolve that. North is a rather insect-sounding NNNNNNNNNNNN though, and that was pretty fun. Made my lips numb from the humming.

My husband is going to be so surprised and overjoyed the next time we're all in his car together!

Christmas is in my rear view mirror - it was a good one, although transitional. I didn't take the kids to see Santa at the mall this year - and they didn't care. I don't think my two oldest really believed before the holiday, although my youngest was eager to put out the cookies and milk for the Man in Red. I explained to my son that our family was aging out of the Santa thing, as Santa really only needs to come for those very special gifts that can't be found any other way, or for little ones who are truly appreciative of his magic. The NORAD Santa Tracker was scoffed at this year, and the stockings, while filled with treats, were mostly things that one or another of the kids purchased with me. Maybe next year Santa won't be stopping here at all.

I'm sure he'd be okay with it. I'm eager to have the focus of the holiday shift to the love and family and charity and music and all of that stuff.

I'm off from work this week, and it has been a welcome respite - 2011, although a banner year in many respects, has taken a toll on my family, my home and my health in general. I'm not a huge stress-ball, but the relentless pace this year combined with some challenging events has left me strung tighter than a drum, and pining for down time. I'm trying to honor that, while not leaving the kids to their own devices, so tomorrow we're going ice skating, and we'll pack in a few other fun (local) activities before their holiday ends on January 9th.

So, basically, I'm done with shopping, but as most of my shopping was online, now we begin the "will it get here in time" dance and the "oh crap I still have to wrap all this stuff" dance and the "oh yeah, Santa comes tomorrow" dance and that, my friends, is a lot of dancing.

We had a scare this week: my FIL had a minor stroke, and in that my inlaws live four + hours away, we were like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to gather information, get organized and cover bases. Mercifully, he's fine, and back at home with no limitations and no need for rehab. This whole experience has opened my eyes to all the information and planning we need to be doing (and should have been doing) to deal with aging parents who likely will need some sort of managed care in the not-too-distant future. We are woefully unprepared, but I know what my New Year's resolutions are going to be.

I really need some egg nog. I think that would fix, like, 90% of my lack of holiday spirit.

My youngest surveyed the carnage and said "Yeah, so the world is really glad you weren't in Bethlehem that night. And also that you aren't a giant."

Indeed. INDEED.

We got it home, and stood it in a bucket of water until we dragged it into the house a week later.

I put the lights on it, and dragged the box of ornaments out... and we just put those on tonight, in between homework and dinner and bed.

I've made a few crafts with my kids, and I've done a bit of shopping, but I am not feeling the holiday spirit right now. Part of the problem this year is the sheer volume of activities we've got going on. We had the Junior High Winter concert, where we picked the only seats in the house that resulted in our child being exactly blocked by the lady playing the harp.

Now, of course we were excited that the kids got to sing with a harpist and all, and I'm pretty sure she was a Big Deal, but the fact of the matter is, we came to see our kids perform, and one side of the auditorium instead got a sweet view of this lady and her harp.

My husband, before the performance started, walked up to the kids who were settling on the risers. I though he was going to wish our daughter a good performance. Instead, he approached the harpist and asked her to move to the side.

"Hey, nice harp." he said. "Listen, can you move it to the side, so we can see our kids? You're blocking this whole side of the room."

She said no, and was a bit insulted, we gather. So, my pictures look like this:

We strolled around to get a better angle (ruining other people's shot of the stage) and snapped a few quick frames. Hey look, you can see my kid!

My son also performed. You can't really see him, because they surrounded him with taller kids. Here's a quick look at the, uh, spirited performance, he delivered despite his near-invisibility:

We're obviously beaming with pride.

Then, my oldest had her first Christmas Dance with her ballroom dance lessons. She got a new dress, and proceeded to drink a ton of punch and eat a ton of cookies to avoid dancing. She did get hauled out onto the dance floor quite a bit, with her buddy-since-kindergarten by her side most of the night. When one of them was dancing, the other stood nearby, scowling. It was marvelously weird. Here is my daughter doing the "Disapproving Matron" while her friend dances.

That's her, dead center. A moment later, things took a turn for the weird when she decided to push her skirt's spinning capacity to its limit:

This clearly amazed her now blurry companions, who were stunned out of a fox trot to appreciate her moves.

A bit awkward, but funny...right? I assume the ladylike manners and social awareness will develop at some point.

She also did her own hair, in what can be best described as Anime-Style - pigtails with curly bits hanging in front of her face. I tried to convince her to attempt a more, uh, conventional style, but no. No.

NO.

She is so my kid.

Honestly, where does the time go? My youngest, my baby, is nine years old today.

I was off work for Thanksgiving week, and had big plans, hoo boy. I was going to gut closets! I was going to rearrange cupboards and organize bookshelves! And then? I ended up staring at the wall for about a week.

Well, that and snuggling with my kids while making them watch musicals like Fiddler on the Roof and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But there was a lot of staring as well. Work has been fast and furious, and my brain was well-and-good fried. The good news is that that week helped recharge my batteries. The bad news is that all my projects still haven't been finished and I'm eyeballing the week after Christmas as Project Week.

(That so isn't happening.)

Yesterday, my husband took a crowbar and sledgehammer to our crumbling deck trellis, spurred on by the scary winds we've been having. He dismantled the trellis (something that needed to be done for two years) in about an hour, and made a good start on the decks as well. The kids and I buzzed around, helping pile up the shattered wood.

"Should we hire a hauling service to come get this stuff?" My husband asked.

"Yeah. Definitely." I said. "Or we could get one of those giant dumpsters."

OOH.

Look, I know it is wrong, but there is something about having a giant dumpster that gets me all fluttery and happy and feeling like Stuff Will Get Done. I'm ordering one tomorrow. I can't wait.

We took a lot of photos while we were there, but there was one photo that I didn't take, and instantly regretted it. It might go down as a hall of fame missed opportunity. It was that good.

After a long day at the conference, Yvonne and I headed out from the venue to tackle some work back at the hotel. Once our stomachs were growling, we decided to get some dinner, and headed out to the street to find some food. We ended up at this very Cheesecake Factory-like joint called The Grand LUX Cafe'. There was a 45 minute wait, but we figured that was okay, because really, by the time we found someplace else to go, it would be even longer, so we just gave the host our name, and climbed the staircase clutching our light saber call stick and parked on a bench.

Those were the longest 45 minutes of my life, because the bench we parked on faced the kitchen, and they kept loading up steaming bowls of what appeared to be beignets. We all know that I'm all about the beignets, so staring at them up in my face for 45 long, hungry minutes was hard. Capital H hard.

Finally our stick started flashing and Yvonne and I marched to the hostess stand.

"Thanks," she said. "Head down that hall and wait for your name to be called," she said.

I looked down the corridor in question, which was jammed with people.

"That hall?" I pointed, eyebrow raised.

"Yep, right down the hall." She added that little fingers walking gesture to shoo us in the right direction.

Now, I'm 4'11" - so walking down a narrow hall filled with people is never fun, but as I squared my shoulders and started down the hall, I noticed that the entire company of people in the hall were male. Lining both sides of this hall were tall (by my standards, but really, Chicago, what's up with all the tall, attractive fellas?) men, each holding a glass of beer, with barely enough room to squeeze through them to the waiting area at the end.

After passing the first couple of guys, I was all - "What's up with the Hall of Men, Y"
The assembled men started chuckling, and one of them said something along the lines of "It's your lucky day, ladies."

Once we both got out of the Man Chute, Yvonne immediately started singing "It's Raining Men" to big laughs from everyone.

We were shaking our heads, and cracking up about how very awkward that was, and Yvonne was joking about how she wished that she had body-waved herself down the hall ala Soul Train.

By the time we stopped laughing and WTFing, the Man Chute had been broken up, called to their tables, and it was too late to recreate the shot. It was awkward and funny - and when I retell the story from now on, it will look a lot more like this: