My Good Egg

I’ve not always been the best bed mate.

Mark may not often admit that, the dear, unless you catch him on a morning when I’ve had what he refers to with restraint as “a particularly active night’s sleep.”

You see, he’s a light-as-a-feather sleeper. And I could slumber heavily alongside a train track. I’m a deep deep sleeper who’s also on the move, stretching, flopping over then back like a fish, pedaling an imaginary bike, or curling fetally into what Mark calls my “comma position.”

I do sleep as a high-impact sport.

Mornings, the volume of my hair snarl and the intensity of Mark’s bloodshot eyes are the indicators of  just how fervidly I’ve thrashed through the night. Usually without ever pulling out of my corpse-like slumber.

I am not a night-time tinkler. (In fact, I hold mortals who speak of “getting up at night to pee” in mild to moderate disdain.) Before kids became part of our traveling show, I’d fall asleep on planes prior to take-off, and be nudged awake before landing by flight attendants insisting I “return my seat to the full upright position.” At the dramatic height of a movie or TV show, I could suddenly nod my head, let my jaw hang lax, and conk out cold.

Sleep is my super power.

Of course, I’ve been pregnant twice too. So Mark’s also suffered through months of me engaged in nighttime aerobics, but wielding a large inner baby and scads of assorted pillows I’d pack around myself like I was some fragile teapot being sent through the mail.

I suddenly discovered what it was like to wake up in the night, uncomfortable with a hip that seemed it was being crushed in a vice. Add to that, I was having to pee. (Me!) My pillows were my desperate effort to defend my long-cherished run of failure-proof sleep. They were my mental and physical support. Like a full-body nighttime bra.

Yet even they failed me. Because whenever I rolled over I’d need to reconfigure the innumerable group of them on the new side.

As if that weren’t bad enough, once I’d finally get settled the skin on the soles of my feet would feel dry. (My own personal crazy-lady pregnancy thing.) So I’d reach to my bedside table for lotion, sweeping my glasses to the floor, clanging my glass of water, and ultimately, upsetting my strategic pillow array. Waah!

Poor Mark. A frat boy after a night celebrating his 21st birthday couldn’t sleep through that.

Often, understandably, Mark would give up and schlep to the couch. And as long as his pillow and blanket were gone by daybreak, so friends or house cleaners wouldn’t question the health of our marriage, I was admittedly happy to be alone. Doing snow angels in the sheets with my immense baby-filled body. Not worrying about moving too much and keeping Mark up, I’d fall asleep nearly instantly.

Alas, it’s likely Mark’s days of pregnancy-induced couch sleeping are over. (Sniff!). But this week I’ve had a cold. I NEVER get sick. My take on colds is akin to the mortal weakness of night peeing.

And Mark’s been so horribly busy at work. At night he gets to crawl into bed with me sniffling, snorfling, coughing, and worst—doing the Bruno triple throat clear. From my lump on the left sife of the bed I radiate germs and self-pity like rays from the sun. And my already unsexy cadre of nighttime attire has bottomed out with the cold-weather return of my flannel Lanz of Salzburg granny gown.

Let’s just say I’m no Betty Draper.

But through it all Mark’s been the attentive tough-love nurse. “Have you even taken zinc? Or Vitamin C?” he’ll ask, then sigh, trundle off, and return with a handful of pills and a tall glass of water.

This morning he delivered a cold pill and some decongestant or other before I even got out of bed. I mean, at least that’s what he SAID he was giving me.

But seriously, if you haven’t met my husband, let me tell you. He’s a good egg.

When the girls were wee babes and I was getting up a lot at night to nurse, since Mark holds the title of World Featherweight Sleeper, he’d be up too. In fact, he’d be the one shaking me to consciousness when the monitor was blaring baby cries and crackling static at Volume 11, right at my ear.

“Uh, honey? Kristen? The baby is up.” And I’d've been on such another stratosphere of deep sleep I’d walk heavy-legged and dull-faced down the hall towards the crying.

But when I got back into bed, without fail, he’d have fluffed my pillows.

I know it seems like a small thing. But it was such a sweet act of I-wish-I-had-boobies-and-could-help-out-more kindness. If I weren’t so damn tired, I’d have taken his face in my hands, planted a big smooch on his forehead, and blubbered happy words of appreciation.

Turns out having one’s head drift down into two perfectly fluffed pillows is an exceptional simple pleasure. Especially when you’re months into no more than three or four hours of sleep at a stretch.

And another thing about that man, because I’m on a roll now. When he’s cooking? And cutting up carrots for something? He chops off a little nubbin of one and brings it over to me wherever I am. You know, like where I’m setting the table, or digging in the bottom of the closet for my other clog.

I don’t even remember how it is that I told him about this, but the reason he does it is it’s something my mother would do. She spent 70% of my childhood cutting up raw vegetables to set in front of me. Or handing me a piece of celery off the cutting board, before dumping the rest into a pot.

Speaking of her, I had that phone thing happen today. The thing people talk about when someone close to them dies—still getting the impulse to pick up the phone and call the person, then having the realization that you can’t.

Google really should work on that.

Anyway, what’s weird is that it’s been ages, like, over five years, since mom and I have had one of our meandering, sometimes only mildly-interesting daily phone calls. So I’ve been over that phone call habit for a while now. Or so I thought, at least.

But earlier tonight, after Kate’s dance performance and before dinnertime, I was tired. I’d been on Mama duty all day, with a ragged voice, goopy cough, mounting headache, and two young unsympathetic charges. I was summoning my last bits of patience and energy to get a bare-bones frozen ravioli and salad dinner on the table.

I was cutting up carrots to steam—’cause it turns out my mother’s veggie-pushing got passed down in the genes—and as I turned on the oven to warm some bread, it started. Not that I thought I wanted to call her per se. It’s more that this string of thoughts about feeling worn out, and the girls arguing over books in the other room, and it starting to get really cold at night here now that it’s fall—this series of thoughts I was running through in my head were things that were somehow sort of customized for her. The kinds of things I’d be telling my mother if I could.

And then that one part of your brain that can be sitting back when another part is doing something else, it prompted me with the thought, “Hey, seems like you want to be calling your mother right now.”

Which had the potential to take me to the brink of feeling far worse about the state of things than I already felt. I mean, feeling sick and tired is one thing. But the dead mother trump emotional card always beats out everything else.

But blessedly, before I could even go there, the lock on the door clicked in that barely audible way it does when Mark comes home. And Kate sprang off the couch with an amped-up need to tell a story, and Paige, from her spot on the floor stretched out her arms for her tragic pick-me-up-you-don’t-KNOW-how-much i-missed-you act.

In a snap, that little door click redistributed all the energy in the house. And when the door swung open, it was like all the thoughts swirling around in my head got sucked outside in the back draft.

Sometimes that man has just got perfect timing.

The Give and the Get

One of the things Kate gave me for Mother’s Day this year was a large pack of multicolored plastic beads and some stringing thread. Beads exactly like the ones she’d used in a project at school a few weeks earlier, but clearly hadn’t gotten her fill of.

It was one of those gifts like lingerie from a boyfriend. Not intended for the recipient at all.

Alas, at Kate’s age, I’m willing to forgive the misdirected sentiment. As long as I don’t get doll house furniture for Christmas.

This year for my birthday (which regretfully fell on Mother’s Day), I also received the BEST PRESENT EVER. My from-womb-to-tomb friend Amelia sent it. Just to make me love her even more.

Some expectation setting. This gift ain’t for everyone. But it’s silly it’s so perfect for me. Which is what makes it such a home run, right?

Okay, so this perfect pressie was a pair of flip flops that have Velcro over the strap part. And, like the Pappagallo bag that was the fashion peak experience of my tweendom, there are all different colored and patterned straps you can buy to stick on them. For me, Amelia generously got me tan stripey Burberry-esque ones, some black ones with white polka dots, a red and orange kinda floral pattern, and, as an obvious nod to my early days of over-achieving preppydom, (which Amelia won’t let me forget, and why should she), some with pink lobsters.

I know, I know. Wrenching Velcro straps off your flip flops to change out the look is absurdly hokey. But as a stay at home mother, I’m the Imelda Marcos of flip flops. I mean, in a strange reverse of dorm living, the only time I’m not wearing flip flops is when I’m showering. Oh, well and sleeping of course too. At least, as far as you know.

A couple months ago I saw UGG flip flops at Nordstrom. They had furry soles, and a plain rubbery strap. My brain was churning madly to process them and determine whether it was brilliance or blasphemy. And really, it’s only in the Bay Area that it could ever be warm enough for flip flops and concurrently chilly enough for faux fur. But I seem to remember there being something dumb or ugly looking about the straps. I mean, aside from how blisteringly absurd and cavewoman-like the overall look of the shoes were.

Anyway, I didn’t try them on. If I had, I might be wearing them right now, and lamenting that they don’t make a high-heeled version for the party I’m going to tonight.

At any rate, my fabulous Amelia-given mood flip flops delighted me from the moment I spotted the package on my front porch. The only downfall of their coming into my life being that, when I opened them, my impassioned exclamation “These are the best. Present. Ever.” appeared to hurt Mark’s feelings.

Mark has, it’s true, given me some divine gifts. One Christmas at my dad’s, I tried on a jacket from Mark I’d long coveted and spun around the living room, happily modeling it over my PJs. What I failed to do before slipping it off, was put my hands in the pockets. Where a blue Tiffany box was waiting, housing a stunning ring. (We were married at the time, in case this comes off as some weird in-the-presence-of-my-father engagement scenario.)

I was thrilled with my gift, but it was my father who shook his head for days marveling over Mark’s clever romanticism. It’d seemed impossible for Dad to like my hubbie more that he already had, but that move sent Mark into the stratosphere of adored sons-in-law.

Ah well. I only wish poor Mark was able to experience a level of gift recipiency (how’s that for a word?) akin to mine. I mean, you never think you’re a bad driver, right? But God knows they’re all over the roads (so some of you people must be). And, well, you never think you’re bad at buying presents, but recently I feel like, despite myself, I’m being led to that conclusion.

For Mark’s birthday in November, I got him a bunch of different things, big and small. Some from me, some from the girls. One thing I’d seen in the back of a magazine—I know, I know, this should have been my cue to retreat—was a, God this is so embarrassing to even say, well, a t-shirt that said Dunder Mifflin. You know, the name of the paper company they work for in the show The Office. Mark loves that show. Mark often wears t-shirts on the weekends. I thought, this is funny! This is good! He will like this!

But then, a few months passed by, and one night I realized he’d never worn it. And it hit me. “That shirt,” I said to him, amazed it’d taken so long for me to figure it out. “It’s utterly dorky, right? I mean, you’re pretty much embarrassed to ever wear it. I’m right, aren’t I? Am I right?”

His two second pause and slow, “Well, no….” said it all.

I was howling with laughter. Literally slapping my thighs, amused and amazed that I’d somehow totally missed its immense dorkosity.(Though, a few weeks ago, a good six months after his birthday, when he’d splattered something on the shirt he was wearing and we were safely home for the night, Mark did, charitably, toss it on.)

What else? For our first Valentine’s Day, less than two months into our love thing, Mark got me a hope-it’s-not-too-much-this-early-on watch. (I loved it. It wasn’t at all too much.) Me? I bought him a silver cigar cutter. Is he a cigar smoker? Why, no! What then compelled me to purchase this gift? I’ve got no idea. He’s literally used it ONCE.

Then there’s the tragic Wine Spectator subscription that keeps coming and coming. Piling up on our coffee table. Sitting around in its large-formatted glory. Taunting me that Mark (or I) never manage to read more than the cover lines. (And “Great Reds Under $20″ seems like the kind of thing you’d want to know about too, right?)

I can rattle off other bombs of gifts I’ve given Mark. I’ve also struck out grandiosely on gifts for my dad. Tartan vests, genealogy tracking software, phone headsets for home use. The list goes on.

Along the way I must have done some good work, but I’ve watched enough Law & Order and CSI to know that you need to stand back and look at the evidence unemotionally. Let it speak for itself. And these things, well, they clearly indicate I don’t have much of a gift for, well, giving gifts.

But I’m a die-hard optimist. And egomaniac. I refuse to feel that all hope’s lost.

Maybe I’m better at buying gifts for females? Maybe I subconsciously give some good gifts and some bad ones, to underscore the goodness of the keepers?

And maybe with some luck I can alter fate. There may be some adult ed class out there where I can sharpen my gift-giving skills. I mean, if grown men and women can learn to flirt in classroom settings, there must be hope for me.

If not, for our wedding anniversary this summer, I can always enlist Kate to help me shop for Mark. I think a pink Hello Kitty change purse may just turn the tide on my poor track record. Besides, it’d look real nice with his gray Dunder Mifflin shirt.

The Weepies

For the last day or so I’ve had a mild case of the weepies.

I mean, nothing that’s even resulted in actual tears, but some intermittent on-the-verge-of moments that come about suddenly and vaguely, unrelated to anything that’s even happening at the time. You know, putting the sliced turkey back in the fridge, handing Mark a washcloth for the kids’ bath, driving on the highway through a torrential thunderstorm when we arrived in Kentucky tonight.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking, and NO, I don’t have PMS. I’m not sure what’s to blame, but it ain’t hormones.

Though I wish that it was, because frankly this wimpish state of neither glee (my default) nor despondency is so not for me. I prefer my emotions with more dramatic flourish, thank you. At least more decisiveness, for God’s sake.

If there is crying to do, better to have an all-out bawl sesh like Holly Hunter’s daily one in Broadcast News. Sob and wail like a baby, then take a breath, wipe your face, smooth out your shirt, and get on with your day.

God, I loved that movie.

Anyway, I’m certain that my bulletproof chipperness is bound to be back by daybreak. We’re settled into a gracious old hotel in downtown Lexington—center stage for Mark’s favorite cousin’s long-awaited wedding. Which isn’t to say we’ve all been wondering when the hell she’d finally git hitched, but that ever since she and her fine fellow got engaged the family’s been champing at the bit awaiting this opulent Southern shindig. (Equine pun intended. Hey, it is Kentucky, after all.)

It also should be noted that the dress-shoe-and-accessory shopping that Mark’s relatives have done in preparation for this event has likely had a significant impact on stimulating our nation’s tragic economy. So, you’re welcome.

As for me, resolved to not spend money on something new (per the aforementioned recession, and that my dress closet overfloweth), I buckled at the last minute, but decided to be thrifty and went to Nordstrom Rack. Where, as luck had it, a fabulous frock for a fraction of the retail price fell off the rack at my feet and squawked, “Take me home!”

Okay, okay, so I actually got three dresses—and three pairs of shoes—but they were all dirt cheap. And if I don’t release the shopping pressure valve a little bit every once and a while I could fall prey to some unanticipated retail incident that’s far far more devastating.

So, I’m not sure really where this is all going, but why not come along for the ride because it could eventually get interesting.

Okay, so just to prove to you what a BAR-GAIN this dress is I’m wearing to the wedding—because I’m quite certain you’re sitting there desperate to have some way to understand more deeply just how much money I saved. Just to be able to illustrate that for you I’ll out and admit that I went out and bought my first, uh, well, girdle.

I mean, when I talked to my friends about this I’d actually thought it was a legitimately seismic confession. But everyone’s all “Spanx this” and “Spanx that,” like they’ve been wearing some form of corseture under God knows what clothes for God knows how long when I’d just been going along thinking that exercise and watching what I eat are the best ammo against a fat ass. Hell, they’re all downing 8-foot subs at lunch and just wedging their lower halves into girdles.

So the fact that my deep dark confession made everyone turn to me and say, “Duh,” made me feel like I’d told them I hadn’t read Eat, Pray, Love yet or something. Which, by the way, I have. So my ass might have naively been shakin’ around unclenched by Spandex all this time, but I have kept up with some other realms of modern female life. Sheesh.

Okay, so but what I was trying to get at was, this girdle, this gut-and-ass-confining contraption that I bought? It cost MORE than the dress I’m wearing over it. And just how many bourbons does this Northern lass have to drink under a tent at a schmancy reception at Keeneland before she’s admitting that to everyone?

Well, I’ll be sure to report back and let you know.

Again, taking my patented Pressure Valve Release Approach, I was hoping that if I admitted it here, it might mitigate my need to inform the pastor of this fact after the ceremony on Saturday.

Yes, this is what it’s like being me.

And speaking of the wedding, I can’t help but wonder now if there’s some little emotional nugget inside me that can attribute my recent state of sometimes-not-estatic, to the dismal fact that the groom—whom I truly think is the bee’s proverbial patellas—is mourning the recent death of his mother. A thing that, if it weren’t so altogether crappy on its very own, unfortunately happens to be a situation which is very damn similar to the one that I found myself in on my wedding day.

So before tomorrow morning’s hotel breakfast where we’ll descend into a slew of family and friends, before that slings me into extroverted socializing heaven, and this little case of the droop is whisked away never to be thought of again… Before all that happens, I’m here now, on the hotel bed in the shirt Mark wore today, him next to me, sleeping with a pillow over his head. And I’m sending out some thoughts the groom’s way.

Hoping that he manages, like I did, to spend his wedding day in a flurried blitz of joy and love and luck. And that without too much guilt or sorrow, he’s able to make this grown up, big boy, life-rocking move happily. Even without his Mama there.

As for me, I’m hoping the next wave of weepiness I contend with is during that inevitable hand-squeeze that Mark and I—and likely every other twosome who still takes a shine to each other—will make at some uncontrived and true, love-drenched point in the ceremony.

And I plan to follow that up promptly with a nice large glass of local bourbon.

Did I mention how cheap babysitters are here?

Shameful Legacy

Dear Kate:

I confess. Well, it won’t take long for you to figure this out on your own anyway.

My genes are totally responsible for how your hair looks when you wake up in the morning.

All I can say is I’m so very sorry.

xoxo,
Mama

My morning glory:

And yours:

I Was Funny

When Mark got home from work the other night we were having a beer in the kitchen as Kate ran around like a wild child, Paige kicked in her bouncy seat, and our dinner finished cooking.

At one point I turned to Mark and said, “Hold that thought. I have got to get out of these work clothes.” I was wearing a t-shirt, yoga pants, and flip flops.

Mark cracked up.

Nothing better to me than making that man laugh.

House of Healing

I could call this entry House of Pain, but I’m trying to be positive here.

Suffice it to say the Thursday before last was not a healthy day in the McClusky household. A headache I’d had the day before turned into my totally weird and unique optic nerve problem by morning. Which is to say that, for the fifth time now, my right eye is Temporarily Out of Service. Essentially there’s some bad wiring somewhere in my brain that results in my optic nerve getting pinched somehow and stopping working. So, my eye lolls over to the side of my head and the eye lid closes over it so I don’t see in double vision.

Yes, it is extremely weird. Yes, it is extremely rare.

And I would really rather that this isn’t the thing that differentiates me in life.

Thankfully it has always gotten better. Though it requires time and patience. Last time it took about 7 weeks to right itself. And by right itself, I mean that quite literally since there is nothing that the doctors can do, no magic pill to take, to make it all better.

In the modern world of pharmaceutical-mania, it’s distressing when your doctor informs you that there ain’t no pill for what ails you.

So, I’m out of work since I can’t drive, shouldn’t really be straining my “good eye” on the computer, and need to rest up ‘n get better.

In the meantime, when Mark and I returned from my doctor’s appointment on Day One of my eye blitz, Kate was lying on the couch with an ice pack on her ankle. She twisted her ankle coming down the slide at the park with the nanny. Now two doctor’s visits and two x-rays later, we are trying to get in to see an orthopedist. After 9 days she was finally able to walk again, but is limping like Quasimoto. They think there could be some kind of hairline fracture that isn’t showing up in the x-ray.

Aside from a toenail related injury which seems to be on the mend, Mark has maintained the function of all his eyes and limbs. Thank God since Cyclops and Hop Along have needed all the help we can get.

Up on the Roof

Apparently in lieu of leaving the house with my slippers on–a behavior I have somehow, blessedly, managed to curb–I have now begun driving with my possessions rolling around on the roof of the car. It’s happened about three times now, and each time I’m made aware of it by a loud noise that causes both Kate in her carseat and me to look up at the ceiling of the car with “what the hell is that?’ expressions on our faces.

Due in some part to luck and in another part to there being a large sporty-person equipment carrying device (Mark’s) screwed onto the top of the car, I have not yet lost anything. I just pull over and easily retrieve the forgotten toy, sippy cup, bottle of water, what have you.

I swear the next time it happens Kate is just going to roll her eyes and say, “Ma, you did it again.”

My Longs Hat

In one of my recent forays to Longs Drugs I stumbled upon a rack of sun hats that were 25% off. I’d been thinking I needed something to protect me from the sun since I’m out walking with Katie-Pie a lot, and by the end of the day all the sun had been giving me headaches. I was also fearful that by August I’d have the leathery skin of a sunbathing octogenarian from Miami.

Anyway, I first picked out a bright orange hat thinking maybe it was secretly the most fashionable one there. I wasn’t sure that I liked it, but for all I knew it was a look that was all over the runways in Milan. (I’m fairly certain that much Italian couture ends up in the Longs sale aisle.) Then I considered the chocolate brown one. Mark’s fashionable Aunt Terry told me once brown is a good color for me, and I took it as gospel. Then I saw a plain old tan one–a color both non-descript and unassuming. After much hand wringing, I decided to make the $11 plunge on the tan one. (In my working days I would have spent 10 times that on something I liked half as much without a second thought. And yes, that is a math word problem.)

This hat has changed my life. Okay, so not really, but I love it. And I’ve somehow convinced myself that it’s kinda hip too! It’s just a floppy canvas hat with a big brim. I wear it with the goggly sunglasses I bought years back when I was in some short-lived Sophia Loren mode. Every morning when we go for walks I toss it on, and Kate wears her hot pink sun hat with the Lilies of the Valley pattern. Together we are a knockout pair.

It may not even take years for me to look back on this hat and determine how absolutely absurd it is. That day may be right around the corner. But I figure that wearing a silly hat will facilitate Kate looking at photos of us from this summer some day, and saying, “My God, Mom! What were you thinking with that hat?”

I’ll just lie and tell her that hats like mine were very chic at the time.

The New Haircut: Chapter 2

Yesterday I used the new products I got and blew dry my hair all by myself like a big girl. I clearly have watched too much reality TV because I had this nagging feeling that a room full of gay men were watching me and commenting cattily on what a poor job I was doing.

Despite the imagined pressure from the non-existant flock o’ gays (unless there’s a hidden camera somewhere in our white bathroom), the hair ended up looking kinda cute. When I was done styling it, I didn’t cry. I took this to be a good sign. Sure, the texturizing makes the me look a bit like the poor man’s Meg Ryan. But better than then the Pat Benetar meets Mrs. Brady cut Jeneel gave me the last time I cheated on Frances with her.

Yes, I failed to mention that this is my second indiscretion with Jeneel. The first one went horribly wrong, leaving me chugging vitamins by the fistful in order to get my hair to grow back faster. (Never a good sign.) Again, it’s not like I was Jennifer Aniston with a world class hairstyle that was suddenly destroyed. The cut that I’d had before Jeneel’s first attempt at transforming me was the same droopy unstyled mop that I’ve had for years. But it was *my* droopy unstyled mop. I’ve never been one for change.

At any rate, never let it be said that I’m not willing to make the same mistake twice. Jeneel seems to have the ability to unleash dozens of friends’ latent fabulous hairdos. So, I thought I should give her one more crack at mine. Besides, ever since Mark and I have gone on our austerity plan, I’ve actually been successful at racheting back on my spending. I was overdue for throwing a wad of cash away on something unnecessary, and a $95 hair cut enabled that quite nicely. To ensure frivolous-spending success, I’m returning next week for a $70 dye job.

Short and Sassy

I actually did it. On the drive to SF I’d convinced myself that I could just get it trimmed and could back out of this whole I-think-I’ll-cut-my-hair-short thing, that I think I really maybe just made up as something to talk about and wasn’t ever really thinking I’d have the courage to do. Not that I thought my hair looked so great before. But better the evil you know, right?

Well, I walked into the fancy salon–blatantly cheating on Frances, my stylist of over a decade–and acted all cool like I’d be up for whatever Jeneel thought might look good. And then she started cutting it! Somewhere in between I stifled the urge to scream out that I was only kidding about wanting it short.

At any rate, after she cut it, her lackey came in to blow it dry. (Jeneel owns the place, and I guess when you’re that senior you get underlings to do not only the hair washing, but the blow drying too.) It ended up looking really cute. A sleek little bob. Fetching. Then Jeneel was going to do what I thought were a few long layers, but started hacking away at it–texturizing it. (Btw, I forgot that term and my metrosexual husband prompted me with it.)

So… we moved away from the short haircut that I would have been totally cool with, to the one I have now. Which is kinda messy/stylie and pretty short. Though I am trying to be the person who says, “It’s just hair” and/or the person who thinks the professional stylist knows better than me.

Mark is in LA, so doesn’t even get to see it professionally styled. When I go at it tomorrow I’ll probably weep and glue a hat to my head.

Cute thing–When I got home and nursed Kate, she still reached up and played with my hair!