Friday, February 24, 2006

Feelin' irie

We are leaving in the morning for the cruise! Good luck weathering the cold... and just remember that while you all are bundling up in your winter best, I will be cruising the Caribbean, lounging by the pool in the hot sun, drinking rum runners while exotic and topless Caribbean gentlemen are fanning me, rubbing my feet and feeding me strawberries!! Ha!

Send me any bon voyage messages by tonight, otherwise, I will "see" you all in a week!

~M

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Beauty at a price

I was beginning to feel like a bedraggled and beaten down mother this week, so I purblindly headed over to the mall with the three kids, Natalie and Carolynn for an eyebrow wax and a haircut. The sadist inside of me thanked me for the waxing, the narcissist inside of me thanked me for the much-needed primping, and the voice of sanity inside of me pleaded for me to never again get so desperate for beauty that I ever again take my children along for my monthly regimen.

Norah rippled the waters when she became bored with her view from the stroller and decided my lap was a much better spot to lounge. I became convinced that my hair was going to look like it was trimmed with pinking shears due to the spasmodic jolting and bouncing from the restless infant on my lap. Norah wound up covered in clippings, the bristles sticking out from her onsie looked like cactus needles, and I'm not so sure that the one's clenched in her tiny fists made for as tasty a snack as she first thought. Nonetheless, her mouth was full of tiny snippings of hairs by the time the stylist was finished cutting.

Meanwhile, Georgie, unhappy with the wait and with the fact that he could not share my lap with Norah, proceeded to wedge himself under a stylist's chair (unoccupied, thankfully) and scream indefeasibly for 35 minutes. Lucky for everyone in a 50-foot radius, his tantrum began just as my stylist started to blowdry my hair which mostly drowned out his wailing.

Abby did her best to pacify everyone in anyway she knew how, but unfortunately for her and for my conscience, due to the constant humiliation from the other two, I started to lose my patience with all of the cute things she was doing to try to cheer up her petulant siblings. She spent the remainder of our visit to the salon sitting in the waiting area looking thoroughly disheartened.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of torture in the stylist's chair, I shelled out $50 for perfectly arched brows, a fresh coiffure, and my release from the barber-chair prison so that I could once again intimidate the ungrateful little nippers back into reality. I quickly apologized to everyone in the salon and to Abby for losing my cool with her, and promised her a harmonious attempt at dinner at her favorite restaurant. 

I reluctantly shuffled everyone over to McDonald's where the three little darlings did, in fact, straighten their acts and represent themselves as perfectly polished and well-bred scions through the entire meal.

Whoever said that beauty does not come at a price was obviously never a mother.

M.