Just for the record, it's a strange, strange feeling when your belly gets so big that it touches the tops of your thighs when you sit in a firm chair. More than strange, it's disgusting. Strange is choosing this state, which is followed by the states of severe sleep deprivation and complete personal sacrifice. My whole life up to the parenthood point seemed to revolve around making choices that afforded me a comfortable, predictable, safe life. Then, it is considered a great personal success when you have children, which is a choice in complete opposition to your former grooming. On the one hand, it makes sense, on the other hand it's completely bizarre that people are so driven to have children...but definitely a good thing, or we'd live in an even more selfish society, which would be exceedingly hellish.

My late-night thoughts aside, I mentioned to Owen day before yesterday that I needed to comb his hair before we left the house and set the comb and a cup of water out on the table. He didn't heed my request for him to come over to me, so I headed out of the kitchen to do a few other things before we had to go. When I got back, I found a very wet-headed and very proud little boy saying, "Owen comb your hair! (pronoun usage is all over the map these days) Uh-Huuh! Goojob, Owen! Use comb by yourself!"





I have to admit I like Owen with longish hair; I think he looks cuter when he's closer to shaggy than shorn. But, when it's shorter I don't have to comb it. And when I do have to comb it, I have no idea what to do with it. I don't really comb my hair...it just sort of does what it's going to do. So I'm rather clueless. Owen's hair was getting long enough that it was starting to annoy me, so we called Mr. Pete (the barber) for an appointment, but he was heading out of town. Since it's been raining for about a month nonstop and we are both a little stir-crazy, I decided to splurge for a cut at Snip-Its, the Disneyworld of children's haircutting options. Owen ate it up. There were giant cartoon characters and big wheels to turn, prize cards to redeem at the end of the haircut, books and crayons while you wait, TVs and suckers at every station, and general gaudy child-spoiling bliss. While Owen is usually tolerant but stoic during a haircut, when they called his name, he marched right over to the stylist without looking back at me and said, 'Sucker?' Yes, your mommy is a sucker. I cannot believe that someone is charging $17.99 for toddler haircuts and I am patronizing the place. When the stylist asked me how short she should cut it, I sassily replied, 'For $18, we had better go ahead and cut it pretty short!' Well, he really enjoyed himself, and indeed began to throw a tantrum when the haircut was over and he wanted 'more haircut? more? more? more!!' The tantrum was evaded when he got to plug in his prize card and a 2 cent temporary tattoo came shooting out of the slot. I'll try to nab some pictures of my shorn boy, who looks at least a year older :{ I just hope that $5 Mister Pete is going to be a satisfactory option next time we need to visit...