A new woman

My ten-year-old daughter has officially begun the magical progression toward womanhood. Gone are the days of pigtails and plastic princess shoes. Hair bows and footie pajamas are but a memory. Because yesterday, my Annie had her first blow-out at the beauty salon.

I could see it coming. Hairstyling was spreading like the stomach flu in her fourth grade class. With each day came the latest styling news, usually on the way home from the bus stop. “Everybody’s getting bob cuts. Melissa got one, and Isabel. Madison’s is really short. She hates it,” reported Annie. It was even more important news than what that nasty boy from the neighborhood did on the bus.

It’s not as if we’ve ignored her hair entirely. That would be impossible, in fact, because Annie has the most gorgeous head of hair to ever grace a scalp. It’s long, wavy, and the perfect shade of strawberry blonde. Hair color companies have been sending spies around since her birth, I’m convinced.

But the truth is, I don’t really want any more responsibility than I already have. This is so much the case that I’m looking slant-eyed at the formerly beautiful potted rose the husband gave me for Valentine’s Day. Every time I see it, I think, ‘I can’t believe he thinks I can care for another living thing besides these three kids, and iron his pants!’ Very ungracious thoughts, I know. So grooming, for all of us, has generally taken a back seat to basic survival in the midst of ballet, soccer, gymnastics and homework.

Then came the final straw. Lexi, our cute little neighbor from across the street, made the leap from wearing long braids in her thick chestnut locks to a cute angled cut. She was over at our house in a flash to show it off. Annie was green.

With much resignation, I made an appointment with my stylist. Isn’t it interesting how easily Andrea was able to “work” Annie into her schedule when it takes weeks for current customers to get an appointment? She knew what I didn’t: that blow-outs are like crack cocaine to young women, and once Annie got hooked, there would be no going back.

Annie was already beaming as she made her way from sink to chair. This was way more pampering than she got at our neighborhood stop-and-chop. Andrea’s tedious attention to gathering Annie’s hair in cute little bundles all over her head was also impressive. But the pinnacle was when the blowdryer and the round brush came out. Andrea turned the chair so her helpless victim was temporarily shielded from the transformation, but I could see the writing on the wall. Annie was gorgeous. When the chair finally faced the mirror, Annie could only stammer, “Wow!!!” The journey toward womanhood had begun.

All afternoon I listened to squeals of excitement every time Annie was able to find her way to a mirror. And every time I caught a glimpse of the smooth, flipped up head that used to belong to my sweet baby, my heart skipped a beat. It’s just a haircut, but it’s also a sign of things to come. I only hope I she’ll fare better than the roses.

Have I lost my mind, along with my keys?

There are markers to indicate that a brain is filled way past capacity and has reached the point of throwing extraneous information out.

Who hasn’t walked into a room driven by purpose only to realize they can’t remember what it was?

I sometimes find myself standing in front of the open refrigerator door, looking for something like a pair of socks or deodorant. (I usually eat something anyway, to save myself a trip later.)

The most obvious symptom of a life that’s out of control is chronic key-losing. Now I’m a fan of organization, and 98% of the time, I leave my keys on the western end of our kitchen island. And I’m not ashamed to mock others who, like my husband, don’t have a designated spot for keys.

Then there’s that other 2% of the time. The places I have found my keys, when they’re not in their special spot, make me shudder.

My favorite way to lose my keys is to throw them in the trash. It’s happened often enough that I start digging as soon as I realize the keys are missing.

I’ve also found them in the garage among the shoes that live in a pile, waiting to be cleaned. The hubby found them there after I enlisted the help of the entire family in my key search.

(On the flip side of key-losing is key-gathering. Sometimes, in my enthusiasm for keeping my keys close, I’ll grab the hubby’s keys and drop them in my purse. That would be his fault for leaving his keys too close to my designated spot.)

Lost keys are a wake-up call to the chronically overloaded, and I shouldn’t have been surprised that the dang things went missing today. Getting three kids out the door, working in the school library, and an afternoon of errands had taxed my brain to its limit by the time the school bus arrived. Getting one child to a study date and another to gymnastics would be my final push for the day.

So, naturally, I couldn’t find my keys. My oldest daughter helped. I even sent her to look in the mailbox, since I had picked up the mail with keys in hand. And they weren’t in the trashcan.

I sent the girls to the van and grabbed a spare key. We’d at least be on time. But I thought of one more place to look—in the bill basket, on top of the fridge, another place my keys like to hide.

Then I remembered. I had put a bottle of water in the freezer to cool off for a few minutes, and I had left the keys in the freezer to help me remember to take the water to gymnastics.

The girls were puzzled when I explained, sheepishly, that I had hidden my keys from myself—on purpose.

They’ll understand someday—when I’m a grandmother.

Snow Day

It’s inauguration day. The rest of the country is enjoying pomp, circumstance and the varied wardrobes of our first ladies.

But in Knox County, we’re up to our eyeballs in children—children who would have been at school today were it not for three-quarters of an inch of the powdery white stuff on our streets.

Joy of joys, it’s a snow day.

Yes, I know. This is a golden opportunity to create family memories of sledding, hot chocolate and stories beside a crackling fire. But with barely enough snow to make angels on the lawn and temperatures close to twenty, this snow day is just an excuse for a giant play date.

We are the kind of parents who say things like, “We want to have a home where kids want to hang out. We’d rather have them here so we’ll know what they’re doing, and that they’re safe.” But after the third stint of bundling and unbundling followed by eating, I was questioning the wisdom of this.

The truth is that as a 42-year-old mom of three, solitude is my most valued commodity. Last night, at the tail-end of a three-day weekend, I had grand plans to spend today organizing recipes and ordering pictures from Snapfish, which I would enjoy immensely in the peace and quiet of my empty home. My dreams were crushed by the news that Knox had gone along with the surrounding (wimpy) counties and canceled school.

There was a time when I enjoyed snow days, like a good mother. When I was mom to a second-grader and a preschooler, my days were less demanding. The end of the school day didn’t signal a mad dash to get to gymnastics on time or throw dinner on the table before a 6:00 soccer game. I didn’t need a list to make sure I met all critical family needs. Having a day where I was forced to have quality time with my family didn’t mean I’d be up until midnight finishing chores for several nights in a row.

Plus, I didn’t make plans for myself that didn’t include kids, like an interview at town hall or lunch with a friend. So I wasn’t disappointed when my day was stolen from me.

That seems like only moments ago. And I know that in a few short years, these very demanding days of managing three busy, non-driving kids will be just a memory. That means I need to cherish the beautiful moments that keep me from jumping off the crazy train.

Late this afternoon I decided to escape the house for a minute with a quick trip to the store for a loaf of bread and my life-sustaining Diet Coke. I announced my intentions to our bonus room, where three girls were shrouded in an enormous fort, constructed with most of our bed linens. At least I thought there were three girls.

“Who’s in here?” I asked, not sure I’d heard three voices respond.

“Lexi and I are in here,” replied my older daughter, Annie. “Laurel’s in the bathroom. She said she wanted to try peeing in a Tupperware container.”

I’m not sure that it qualifies as a beautiful moment, but it was good for a chuckle—on a snow day.