The girls watched "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" with John while I worked on our monthly menu and grocery list. Jessa said she was going upstairs. Nothing out of the ordinary for her to decide she needs some quite "me" time so when she was gone for more than a few minutes I chalked it up to her playing quietly in the playroom as she had done a thousand times over.
It wasn't until I went for a shower that I discovered it. Hair. All over my bathroom floor. Hundreds of strands 3 - 4" long. A quick glance in the trash can almost lead to tears. Chunks of hair. All that same beautiful reddish-brown color that our smallest beauty sported since birth.
It took a second or two to gather my wits before yelling for both girls to join me in the bathroom.
Jessa's hair has always been slow to grow but it has always been so very beautiful. I'm often jealous of those lovely locks. It wasn't until she was about two that she finally had enough to hair to start playing with styles.
This didn't last the entire year as Miss Samantha decided to play with scissors (as most kids do) and gave her sister a haircut that did not leave much for working with. For far too long we referred to Jessa as our Chemo baby due to having to literally shave her head. Talk about a devastating moment for mommy.
Thankfully, after many lectures and the hiding of all scissors we managed to get past the "I need to cut everything" stage. And for the past few years we have allowed both girls to grow their hair as long as they wished as long as they took care of it and it was healthy. Rewind to Christmas for a view of how long both girls hair was.....
Pardon me for saying, but damn those are two cute girls. :) Sometimes it really is hard to believe they are my daughters. Anyhow.....
Getting past the scissor stage.....Well, we got past it with Samantha that is. Jessica, evidently was not completely done with her need to cut things. This was brought to light with the bathroom discovery. After much conversation we finally discovered that little miss had wanted to try mommy's curling brush (nothing more than a circular brush) but it got stuck in her hair. When she couldn't get it out, instead of asking for help she chose to cut it out.
When asked why she didn't just come tell me what she had done the poor girls says "I thought you would be mad." All I could do is hug her. My sweet baby, who worked so long to get her hair so long was afraid to tell me she had a problem. That, is something we will be working on - building confidence in our girls so they are not afraid to ask for help.
So I set out to work trying to save as much of her lovely locks as was possible, and this was the final product. Funny, but she absolutely loves it and I have to say, so do I. Of course Jessa has always had the most beautiful hair and nearly any cut is just beautiful on her.
Not quite a bob, but still beautiful.
Whew !!! We managed to make it through the morning with only one incident. Now I can relax and go back to focusing on grocery lists and clipping coupons. Or so I thought.
All week Samantha has asked about her classmates birthday party. And every time she has asked I say yes, we'll go. It wasn't until she plucked at the invite attached to the fridge door that morning that I suddenly realized I had lost my mind. At the very least I had lost track of time. The birthday party; the party at the local Bowl America, was at 7pm that evening.
Suddenly I realized what a goof I had made. WHAT HAD I DONE ??? I hadn't RSVP'd for the party. I hadn't taken Samantha shopping to find a gift for her classmate. I hadn't done a thing.
Frantically I grab the invite and search for a method to RSVP the parents. Email only. Ugh. Oh well. It was going to have to do. A quick apology and a last minute "Samantha would love to be there" and off the email went. Crossing fingers it wouldn't be too late we waited for a reply. Two hours later we got a call. Samantha was welcome to join in the festivities. Yippee. Only now the issue becomes what to do for dinner?
I've been working on cooking and eating healthier so choking down bowling alley greasy pizza or stale pretzels was not all that appealing, and since I possibly have a job (more to come on that later) I needed to focus on meals that could be made quick and easy but still be healthy. So I scoured the fridge / freezer and pantry and came up with a good ole standby - Hamburger Helper. Or rather Chicken Helper. The chicken was already thawed so it was simply a matter of coating it in crumbs, boiling the pasta, and heating up some beans. A healthy and colorful dinner served with Hawaiian dinner rolls in under 30 minutes. Awesome !!
A quick stop in at Target to find a gift and we're off to the bowling alley. Turns out it was easier for Samantha to pick out a gift than it was to find a way of wrapping it. Finally we opted for a small roll of blue paper, a yellow bow, and a card. Another 15 minutes to wrap the gift (not easy to do when you're standing outside the backseat passenger door using the car's seat as a flat surface).
Once at Bowl America we set up Jessica and John on one lane while Samantha and I set out to find the birthday boy and his party. Wouldn't you know it. The party is on one end and the reserved lane for John and Jessa is at the opposite end. Oh well. They still had a blast.
These two played together most of the evening until it was time to gather the gang for a few rounds with daddy.
And her mom is super pretty too. That whole family is super beautiful so its no wonder they do things like casting calls for Disney. So imagine how honored I was to hear she thought my two sweeties were just as worthy of a Disney audition.
Really? I don't know what to say. Other than "HEY, SIGN EM' UP."
I'm always willing to let the girls try anything so if there is an opportunity for one or both of them to break into the field of talent, bring it on.
The birthday party was a blast for Samantha so when the crowd began to disburse we migrated to the other end of the ally to join Jessa and John in a quick game. Looking back now I should have put the brakes on John after the third game but I haven't seen him have such a good time in a long time and I didn't want to be the one to pull the plug. Yeah, I should have pulled the plug. He's paying for it this morning with back pain and aching all over. Poor guy.
But to see him spending some quality time with his children and having him actually focus on what we were doing was really nice. Not to mention I don't think he's been that relaxed in a long time. No worrying about traffic and every idiot on the road not knowing how to drive. Not thinking about how hard he is having to work to pull us out of the financial hole we got into.
Just relaxing, quality time with his family. It was worth every penny to know that night will be one the girls remember for a long time to come. Me too.
So here we are with a new day and a long list of to-do's to get done. Laundry, cleaning house, finding a suitable outfit for an interview on Tuesday, and updating my resume before hand. If I don't get to it now nothing will get done and I will be completely unprepared for Tuesday.
I'll get into more details on Tuesday about the job interview, but for now, wish me luck. I really want this job.
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