Boys Will Be

... well Boys.
Here are some of the very boyish things they have been up to lately:
Some friends came and took my three older boys to play in the snow while Marc was working one weekend so that I could get a desperately-needed nap. During their snow adventure, the boys finally got to build a mutant snowman. They had drawn pictures of snowmen like this, but now it became a reality. They've never even read "Calvin and Hobbes". I guess boys are just born with ideas like this.

*Note: Roger, our friend pictured with the boys, is the oldest of 5 boys. He totally knows what he is doing.

For Christmas, we got a lot of new very manly dress-up items. They have been a hot item this last week. Here are all the boys dressed as "pirates" which apparently also requires a desert camo vest and a breast plate and shield.

It is fun to watch them act our their pirate play scenarios. Benjamin just runs around with his sword, thrusts it forward in a menacing way and exclaims "Aha!" "Ahaha!" then whacks you with it, giggles and runs away.
David John runs around and sword fights with Gabriel and Elijah until things got too intense for his liking. At this point, he suddenly falls to the floor declaring "I'm dead!" If I believed in reincarnation I would guess that he spent his former life as a possum.  After the declaration of death he assumes some sort of "dead" position. Sometimes this is the fetal position, sometimes this is a dead bug pose with arms and legs in the air and sometimes this means he is spread eagle on the floor. However, regardless of the position, his tongue is almost always lolling out of the corner of his mouth. Tongue lolling is a requirement for any good death scene.
Elijah, after witnessing David John's death inevitably issues a cry of anguish then points his sword dramatically at Gabe and yells, "You killed my brother!" Then he attacks. I keep waiting for him to say something along the lines of, "My name is Elijah! You killed my brother! Prepare to die!" but I guess we haven't shown them The Princess Bride yet.
Gabriel, for his part, always chooses to be the villain. He is definitely the best sword fighter and frequently disarms his brothers. Maybe that's one reason David John keeps dying. Anyway, Gabriel's tag line seems to be "I am going to get you! Bwahahaha!" He also makes a lot of manly grunts and says "Aargh" while fighting.
Frequently, this pretend fighting escalates into something more real and then we have to take a break, but it also provides me a good deal of laughs. I'm pretty sure we could put it on as a dinner theater production.

Wrestling, another favorite past time of our boys. After seeing some of the moves they come up with on their own, I have sworn an oath that they will never ever ever be allowed to see anything along the lines of WWE. The last thing we need is chairs getting involved.

Here are some pictures from yesterday. For a while, I thought they were taking a departure from their testosterone-filled play and exploring their feminine side. They decided to get a group photo of all of their stuffed animals. They spent quite a bit of time carefully arranging and tucking in the animals so that everyone was warm and cozy and so that each animal's face could clearly be seen. It was quite the undertaking. I got these two sweet pictures of the project:

Then, someone yelled "Let's smash it!"

They spent the next half hour wrestling on the couch and pushing each other off of the coffee table onto piles of blankets and stuffed animals which were now on the floor.

Oh my, I hope the world is ready for one more little Ricks. With brothers like these, he is guaranteed to be all boy.

Head Trauma

Last Saturday, I chose to do something brave and good for myself and good for the world. It was a win win win thing to do. Marc was working back to back 24 hour shifts and had arranged for 4 hours of babysitting so that I wouldn't lose my mind. So I decided to go get my hair cut.
This was brave because I hadn't had a real haircut in a very long time and there are always risks inherent to activities involving very sharp scissors, especially very sharp scissors near your head. This was good for me because I had found a few split ends and I was starting to feel just slightly unattractive with those split ends and that whole big belly thing. This was good for the world because I planned to donate my hair to Locks of Love and a happier pregnant woman is always a good thing for the world at large.
I went to a very nice salon which I happened to have a $25 gift certificate for. This meant my haircut was still going to cost me $50 plus tip but I figured it would be the best haircut of my life and they would use all of their magical salon products that would leave my hair soft and shiny for days so it would totally be worth it. I had high hopes of some serious relaxation and a fabulous new look.
Things started out well. I explained to the stylist that I needed twelve inches taken off so I could donate it, and then I wanted it thinned and layered. I also explained that because I was about to have a baby, I really needed enough length left to put it in a ponytail. When you have a new baby, styling your hair in the morning is just not realistic most days. Everyone seemed to be on the same page. The whole salon was excited about doing such a drastic haircut. Twelve inches! They took before pictures and had the stylist pose with her scissors next to my massive ponytail.
Then she cut it off.

Not twelve inches of my massive ponytail. The whole thing. 18 inches of hair gone with one very inexpert snip. Although I couldn't see the back of my head it felt much much too short. I'm guessing basic math isn't covered in hair school? Even very nice hair schools? The stylist was very friendly and chatted while she attacked the rest of my head. When she got finished, she commented, "Well, you don't have much of a ponytail left..." and then turned my chair around. I was speechless. Apparently "not much of a ponytail" meant zero because I couldn't even pull the very top layer back, not even with a barrette. "Ponytail" must not have been a vocabulary word in hair school. I was starting to suspect that maybe she was an impostor and hadn't been to hair school at all. I was tempted to ask to see her license. I was so upset that I left before the shampoo and style which reduced my price to $30. This meant it only cost me $5 out-of-pocket to have my hair butchered and for the first time in my life I did not leave a tip.
I got into my car, burst into tears and drove to my friend Sarah's house. I blubbered my way through the whole story while she inspected my hair. She gave me a hug and said "You have every right to be crying right now." I appreciated the solidarity but despaired at the fact that my hair really was THAT bad. Luckily, Sarah is one of those people who just solves problems. She spent the next two hours fixing my horrible haircut, during which she discovered that my hair is naturally wavy. Who knew? She loaned me a book, some gel and tried to instill confidence that I could and would pull off this new awesome short hairstyle.
I drove home feeling much better but still insecure. Of course, my boys proved very helpful. After I paid the babysitter and he left, Elijah looked at me and said, "Mom, your hair is all wrong. Let me show you." He led me into the bathroom, turned on the light and stood on a stool while we both looked into the bathroom mirror. He then started pointing to various places on my head while saying, "See? It's wrong here, here, here and here. You should not have cut it so short, Mom."
Little boys should not say things like that to pregnant women. It makes them cry. While I was still crying, Gabriel patted my shoulder then added, "Your hair looks weird. How long is it going to look like that? Why did you want to get it cut weird?"
Little boys should just not be allowed to be around pregnant women right after they get their hair cut. I think that would be a good policy. Pregnant women who get their hair cut should check into a hotel overnight before seeing any little boys... especially little boys with hair critiques.
The good news is, the sun did rise the next morning and I did my hair and went to church. I received many many kind compliments and although Marc didn't recognize me at first when he arrived at church straight from work, he said "You're so cute!" I love that man.

Now I am a week out from what I think can fairly be called my "head trauma" and still trying to master the ways of short, wavy hair. Some days I feel like I am totally rocking this hair thing, ya know, like Meg Ryan.

http://www.tapeteos.pl/details.php?image_id=1780

Other days, I look in the mirror and feel like I look less awesome, more like a boy.... specifically Hugh Grant on a bad hair day.

http://thesocialvip.com/hugh-grant

Over all, I am trying to be grateful for this new adventure in hair. Maybe 2013 is just going to be the year of the new for me. New hair, new baby, new job in a new place. I am just hoping my other "new" experiences won't be quite as traumatic.