Memories: Part 2

The “Maeser House” soon came to be known as the “Height House.” The Heights were our upstairs neighbors and they were CRAAAAZY. To illustrate: Ms. Height, would sit outside in lingerie and yell at all the elementary school kids who looked at her when they were walking to and from school, “Why are you staring at me you perverts!” If her kids fought they were locked in their bedroom with “What the World Needs Now is Love,” blaring through the door. What we heard downstairs was screaming and kicking and DeShannon’s melodic voice soothing the children into loving one another.

Say a Tough No!

 While the Heights were upstairs being brainwashed with love my mom brained washed us through The Safety Kids, please watch this movie on youtube . So when Ryan Height and I were outside playing in the drive way and he picked up a his father’s discarded cigarette buds and wanted me to smoke with him I ran away, and when he pursued me and I turned on him kicking, punching and screaming “NO!” at the top of my lungs I felt completely justified. But after his mom found out that he was being rude to me she made him hug and kiss me and say sorry, this threw me into another moral conflict because my parents were very stalwart in letting me know I was not supposed to kiss boys until I was married and I couldn’t get married until I was 30 years-old. 

Here are our family pictures around this time.

 Grandma Murphy, Me, Mom, Dad, Bro Jake, Sis Micah

 Mama, Dad, Micah, K'Leena, Jacob, Me

 Mom, Dad, Micah, K'Leena, Jake, and Heather, ever the star

Fun With Kacen

As any of you who read regularly might know, I have recently felt exasperated with Kacen and his tantrums. This worry has caused Kyle and I to spend a lot of time on our knees seeking further guidance through prayer. And we have truly felt blessed. A couple of answers we received were:

Kacen loves art and needs to spend more time using his imagination and having that independent creative time.

 So we do a lot of coloring, he especially loves pens, and sometimes draws on his legs if left too long unsupervised, we have done a little painting and he loves it best.

 The second thing I feel that is important is that he just needs time to get his energy out, he needs recreation time morning, afternoon and evening. Thanks to the great weather we go to the park in the morning and after dinner, and have gone swimming twice so far after lunch and look forward to more SWIMMING.

 The other night Ky had a ton of fun playing with Kacen on the trampoline and making Kacen's hair stick out. Which if you note in the pictures above I cut it all off last night.

 The next thing is that Kacen just needs our love, I do not want to gripe about him anymore, after my last post about him I almost felt like I was gossiping about my own kid and I don't want to do that. He really is a sweet boy, who loves his family and who wants to help out and just do things on his own. He just has a ton of energy and he is only two, sometimes my expectations may be a little high for his abilities.

Lastly Kyle and I need to learn to be more bendable. Of course we know we are the parents here and need to set rules and boundaries for his safety and development. I don't want my kid to think that life has no rules or consequences. But we realize that our family won't function if Kyle and I are constantly fighting Kacen and letting him get to the point of self harm without intervening with love and compassion. I feel that being the adult doesn't mean that I need to be so tough on him, being an adult means that I am grownup enough to end an argument and teach love and compassion even if he is still at the peak of his tantrum.

 And I am happy to say that the tantrums are down, we still have them but they are shorter and I really feel hope that things are getting better. I love this little buddy so much.

I feel that little missy in my tummy is just as energetic as her bro. She seriously moves all day. Not just little kicks either we are talking full body movement. So I just gotta eat healthy and stay active for these kiddos.  I guess staying up til midnight tonight with a bag of Doritos has been a little counter productive. But today was a Sunday without Ky, involving six hours of church plus outside recreation time so yeah I needed a break. Haha I probably didn't need the Doritos (or the velveta dip, cake, fruit punch or brownie I had earlier eighter), but the late-night "me time" has been nice.

Chair Fabric

Kyle and I found this upholstery fabric for our chair on the clearance rack at Hancocks, while it might not have been our first choice it will be good enough for our summertime project.

And it was only $7.00 a yard! Yes I know that probably means that it will wear out easily but hey we got the chair for a buck and anything will be better than the ragged tapestry now covering the chair.

 

We started breaking this thing down but have a while to go.

Writing is Hard and Hair Cuts Are Too

As I read back through some of my posts they seem really scatter brained, leaving out important details and lacking all of the eloquence that you get in other blogs.

To my readers: I am sorry for that. I will try to write better posts. The reality is I have about two hours of the day to call my own, and I often spend that time trying to multitask, cramming in my tv watching, blog reading, book reading and game playing. So I often write blog posts with other distracts (aka Shark Tank and Triple D) looming in the background and I think that equals sub-par writing.

I am really sorry if my writing has ever omitted the caring feelings I have towards those around me, sometimes my stick-to-the-facts-just-get-it-done personality comes out too much. I mean I didn't even write anything regarding motherhood on my Sunday post. Admittedly that was somewhat on purpose sometimes the cliche-ity of holidays just bugs me.

Thoughts on Mother's Day
I think can't we just call it "Women's Day?" Even though I love my mother deeply and appreciate immensely all she has done for me, and even though I love being a mom and feel enriched every day with this calling in life, I have so many women in my life who have been nurturing and caring towards me who aren't mothers. I am also very grateful for all of the women who have been loving and nurturing to Kacen who aren't his mother or who aren't mom's at all. And sometimes I feel holidays tend to become excuses to do nice things that we should be doing on a regular basis anyway.

Alright moving on. 

The Truth About the Hair

(Precursor: this is pretty self loathing, vain, and complaintive.)

I don't know why I haven't been completely honest about the hair situation but here it is:
I did get it cut a couple of weeks ago and she did a great job, she cut it just as I asked her to and it did look good. But after playing with for a day or two I realized that I have an issue, I don't know what I want. Even if I do have a vision I have the hardest time describing that to a stylist. I have been feeling a little let down with my hair.

So yesterday I decided to go back in for another cut (because of my embarrassment about not being able to communicate my vision the first time and not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings, though I am sure she wouldn't care, now that I think of it, I went to a different person this time.).

I really should learn to just leave well enough alone because now I have MULLET HAIR. I don't know why anyone would ever look at a young woman who is sort of fashion forward looking and think "gee why don't I take the whole middle chunk of her hair, like a three inch radius, and you know just lob it off at the same height as her eyebrows, you know, a nice mullet look." You know what the worst part of this whole situation is? This IS NOT the first time this has happened, so that leads me to believe that yeah most of the fault is mine.

I think I am just too spontaneous about this whole cutting thing and just go in on a whim whenever I think about it, no pictures in hand as visual aids. But really are visual aids that helpful? I think they too have a major flaw; it doesn't matter if you get that same exact cut as that celebrity, guess what? you will never look like that celebrity. I mean I have dreamed for years about having a hair cut mimicked after this cut of Victoria Beckham's, perhaps just an inch or tow longer.

And some cuts have come close but even if I did get that exact cut I would still feel let down comparing it to that pic. So maybe if I just look at hairstyles on less appealing people then I would have better success.

Anyway here is the cut pulled up because that is pretty much all I can do with it to mask the really bad mullet. And in reality this is probably how I will most often wear it.

Did you notice how god I am at multitasking though? I got a picture of my hair, for the curiosity of some readers, and a picture of my belly for the curiosity of others.

My bum-ment over my hair reached an all time low the night I got the latest cut and took it down from the pony tail at the end of a long day. I just cried and cried and the hysterics reached their peak with me wailing "....and my but is filled with cellulite!" Ky was so nice stroking my hair and giving nice assuring compliments but I just kept wishing he would stop touching the cursed thing now donning the top of my head.

It will be alright though. Seriously, people in this world, people I love and care about deeply, are right at this moment facing bigger worries than a stupid hair cut. 

I apologize for my vanity, and please know this is not a plea for compliments, seriously if you want to do anything for me just be on my side and reassure me that, "Yeah, Heather you need to A) pay more for a cut, and B) figure out what you want. And yes it is a really freaky look but as your friend I promise not to comment on the awkwardness of your hair and to just give you three or four months to let it work itself out."