Home again, home again, jiggity jig

The kids and I are staying with Dad and Susan this trip. They have this huge room downstairs that's been converted to a bedroom/family room and we are lucky enough to have the run of it. This morning, I woke up at some ungodly hour - between the time difference in Illinois and NC and this room being somewhat unfamiliar, I couldn't go back to sleep.

Well, okay, actually it was more that this is the most comfortable bed EVAH and after a few hours, I felt like I'd gotten a full night's sleep. This just confirms my belief that the hub-o-licious and I have the crappiest luck (or perhaps skill) in choosing a mattress that sleeps well after night 6. Seriously. In our ten years together we are on our second new mattress, and it's like I slept on a box o'rocks some mornings.

Also adding to my sleep issues is that S, who was sleeping with me, was having a bad dream night. This meant that whenever she got close enough to feel or sense my body heat, she'd scream, "noooooooooooooooooo" and kick or hit out at me. This is not uncommon, by the way. But it's a pain in the butt when I end up resorting to sleeping on a queen sized bed in various geometric angles to avoid the S zone, which changed constantly. She'd also scream and strike out if I moved her or covered her up or did anything else to show my maternal love and concern for her safety and well being. Sigh.

So early this morning I'm up, might as well spend some time on the ol' laptop. The kids have been delighted to have my full attention for two whole days now and have rewarded me by listening and being wonderful. It's like they've been invaded by aliens. I haven't had to speak sharply or raise my voice on this trip with the exception of coming back to Dad and Susan's tonight only to have some sort of target practice break out between the two of them that apparently used my giant, southernified hair as a target. More on the hair thing in a sec.

By the time I check my email, fiddle around on FB, do a quick blog entry, it's around 6 am. I realize that I should lie back down right this second if I ever plan on it and rest until the kids wake up. They are excited about seeing Mom and Richard so I expect them to be up pretty early. I should also mention that while sleeping S has not appreciated my body heat output while we were on the bed, once I left and was online, she didn't appreciate that either and pseudo woke up crying, "My mommy left me", which just means she was awake enough to realize I wasn't on the bed and she wasn't at home, not not enough to actually be awake. I solved this problem by sitting by the side of the bed nearest to her.

By 8 am, T was awake and I headed up to take a shower. S woke up in the meantime and so we got ready and headed out for the day. We headed to Mom and Richard's where the kids immediately forgot I existed. I was just fine with that, actually. Mom asked if there was anything I needed to do and I asked her if she would be willing to watch the kids if I could get an appointment with my old hairstylist. He's opened his own hair studio and the last time I saw him was about six weeks after S was born. I missed my last hair appointment in Illinois because there was a thing at T's school that night and I volunteered at the beginning of the year for it and then it was Thanksgiving and then life happened and then here it is almost Christmas and I still hadn't rescheduled an appointment. I love going to Wayne for the simple reason that I go in, he says 'what are we going to do today?' and I say, "whatever you want' and somehow I always, always love it.

So I call him and he's like, come on over! And I go. Since he fit me in, it took me a while to get done especially since he did color and cut. But man, do I love it! His styling assistant gave me some serious volume, and made it look like I have thick, amazing hair. That's really hard to do to my hair without making it look all product-laden. So I just took a picture with my laptop camera, after having slept on it a couple of hours and having the kids be unable to keep their hands off of it. Since the kids were asleep, the lighting is pretty dim so you can't see the color, but here's the new, improved me...