day one

This morning, Eric left for his annual hunting trip in West Virginia. It's the start of gun season down there and he stays with family and is able to celebrate Thanksgiving with them to conclude his week away.

Now that both kids are a little bit older, (that's a relative term) I don't seem to feel quite as anxious as I did when Lincoln was still a baby and Elaina was still learning the whole single parent routine. What I mean by that is I now have only one child in diapers, both kids can entertain themselves for reasonable lengths of time and Elaina can be trusted to behave without having Daddy to have to fall back on. This is a nice feeling compared to just one year ago.

Since I also plan to celebrate Thanksgiving away from home, I'm keeping my eye on the prize just knowing that I have to only make my way alone from Saturday through Wednesday before heading out to stay with my parents. Five days. I can do that.

Today was pretty good. Although I felt like my day consisted of washing dishes and scrubbing the table down 78,000 times, we did well. At one point, Elaina was playing games on the computer and Lincoln's scraggly baby hair was just screaming at me for neglecting it for so long. All of the sudden, I could no longer handle waiting for a professional to get us in for an appointment, nor could I wait for a hand from my mom to help cut it. (Incidentally, my mom is a self-taught beautician. Key word: self.) I dug out my haircutting shears (that's the only professional thing I had going for me) and began to snip away at Lincoln's golden, wispy, baby locks. I took advantage of the perfect staging doing it myself; Lincoln was standing in front of the TV, fixated to Yo! Gabba Gabba! which was prime time for his first haircut. Plus I even remembered to take before and after pictures and I saved his hair for his baby book! How do you like me now!!

BEFORE: (Scraggly. I know!) (Plus his head was angled up.)

THE LOVELY AFTER: (pay no attention to the grump face, it was not haircut related)
Surprisingly enough, it actually turned out pretty good. No more scraggly baby hair, but layers which actually look like "texture" in his hair and not so fine and flimsy. Although you can't tell from the picture, the back is straight and even. I should have combed through it before taking his picture.


I must have been on a haircut high because it was that moment that I decided that Elaina also, was due for her first haircut. Three and a half years old and getting her first haircut! I trimmed the length of her hair after she was fresh from her bath and only took off the uneven ends which was all of about one inch. Her haircut saddened me just a little because to me, these were the last thing that connected her with the tiny newborn that we brought home from the hospital. These were the same golden curls that she had when she was a year old and the same ones that began to touch her shoulders when she turned 2. Lincoln, well, he was a peach-fuzz head from day one and his hair only really began to grow within the past 8 months.


How's that for posterity? Another "baby's first" to put down in the baby book and retell when my kids are pre-teens and actually have an interest in when things happened in their life timeline.