A post about my hair

A fortuitous thing happened when we were in Guangzhou. I've been trying to grow out a super-short pixie cut for the last year and the in-between stage has been driving me crazy. On the day we went to the Safari Park, a day that I knew would be hot and humid, even without a baby strapped to my chest and a backpack on my back all day long, I tried to pull my hair into two little pigtails and it stayed! Now, mind you, I recognize that two tiny pigtails is a look better suited to Maren, my five-year-old, than to her 37 year-old mother, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I've worn that look nearly every day since we returned from China. Once I get showered I've expended all of the time Rose is willing to be away from me, so there's no time for things like putting on eyeliner or drying my hair. If you know me, you know that's not a great tragedy in my book, because I hate doing my hair. I'd much rather be playing with my baby than fiddling with a hair dryer and a round brush. And on the days when I do pull out the hair dryer, plop myself on the floor next to my baby, and try to bring the hair beast into submission, it doesn't work anyway-- by the time I stand up and check myself out in the mirror, there's always some weird extra dry piece that looks fried, wavy strands in the middle, and a sopping wet patch in the back.

What you may deduce from this is that I'm not getting a lot of free time these days. It's a good thing, but also not the easiest stage in the world. When we were preparing to get Rose, one of my greatest fears was that she would find it hard to love us. Would she have attachment disorder? Would she just be slow to warm up to us? By the time we left China, I felt fairly confident that we were on the road to attachment, but I also knew that everything could change once we got to Utah.

But it's pretty clear that Rose is attaching to me, and I think that our hospital stay may have precipitated that. When I'm in the room, she wants to be where she can touch me. If she's playing in the family room and I'm doing dishes 15 feet away, that's not nearly close enough, even if she can see me and I'm talking to her. If I'm in the shower and she's outside on the floor two feet away, she's okay for a few minutes as long as I make constant eye contact with her, which makes shaving my legs pretty tricky, so while you're not judging my hair, don't inspect my stubble too closely either. Last night Ed came home after work and scooped her up to play with her like he usually does, and she started to cry and reach for me. If I put my hand on her back, she'd play with him, but only if I was there.

It's progress. It's exactly what I hoped to see.

It's also completely exhausting.

I've been out of the baby phase long enough that my toe dexterity is out of shape (I used to be so good at picking up every little thing with my toes). I still operate under the idea that putting her into the Ergo to make dinner or clean up the basement is a sign of surrender on my part (not surrender to her, just surrender to the idea that I won't be setting her down anytime soon). My boys had a campout in the basement this weekend and took all of their blankets and pillows and stuffed animals down there. I wanted to clean the basement while they were at piano lessons so they couldn't watch me putting all of the Legos back into the Lego bin (which always makes Isaac cry). It took me six trips up and down two flights of stairs to get all of the bedding back upstairs, with Rose strapped to my chest, and that was even before I started rolling up the sleeping bags. I was exhausted, she was exhausted, but we were together.

Don't even think about turning your back on me!

But there's a fine line between love and hate, and I worry that she's going to start resenting me. Since I'm Rose's primary caregiver, I'm also the one responsible for all of her post-operative care. I'm the one giving her the nasty medicine and putting drops in her ears. And I'm the one who has to keep her nasal stents clean, which requires a catheter and saline and lots of tissues, and inevitably results in Rose thrashing and screaming and acting like she hates me more than anyone else on earth (and we have three more weeks of this!). Since her soft palate isn't completely closed, food sometimes works its way into her nostril. Back in the pre-stent days, it would fall right out (and she might even eat it again before I could get to it) but now it gets stuck behind the stent, which must be incredibly painful. I was feeding her tiny bits of bean burrito for lunch today and she got a teeny piece of tortilla up there behind the stent, and the end result was her screaming, me crying, and a little bit of blood in her mouth from when I went after it with the catheter. Now I'm terrified that I messed something up with the surgery and I'm going to get yelled at. I'm doing my best, I really am, and she's been giving me sweet little hugs this week, which we both need, I think. I hope she doesn't hold my pitiful attempts at nursing her against me.

Anyway, so if you see me with my hair in pigtails and think, "Doesn't she know that's not the best look for someone of her, ahem, maturity?" please cut me a little slack. Or else I might let you watch the baby for a while. On second thought, I'll keep the baby, but send you down to clean the basement.