Cutting Bangs.......in the Wind

It's 1:30am and I can't sleep because I took a 3 hr. nap this afternoon....and my pregnant body loved it. My lame excuse for a dog is sleeping next to me on the couch snoring like a large fat man with apnea. Every once in awhile, he'll start to "sleep yelp" and I can only imagine that he's finally grown the cajones in his slumber to chase after the bully dog next door.

As I sit here, I can feel my baby jump inside me. I can't wait to meet this little one....to hold him/her. We've decided to name this sweet addition Jesse if it's a boy and Jesi if it's a girl. I have no feeling whatsoever what gender this child is. I am always wrong and always surprised. I love not knowing. It always amazes me to hear other people comment on how they know what this child is going to be by the way I am carrying it, or the way my skin looks...or even how moody I am. What I do know, is that this child will be a gift that I don't deserve but am willing to accept any day.

I had someone comment on my blog address of "never cut bangs in the wind". You know there's a story behind this right? Of course, I'm full of them. Annie, my third oldest, was about five years old. Her bangs were out of control and I took the shortcut.....not pun intended. At eight months pregnant, I didn't feel like hauling her upstairs, pulling out the sheet and taking the time to meticulously trim her sweet bangs. Instead, I took her outside onto our back porch with scissors in hand. That way, any hair that dropped, I could just sweep off into oblivion. The minor detail that affected this location was the fact that the wind was probably blowing at about 10-15 mph. Hey man, they're just bangs!! So I put my hand on the top of her head to keep her and her bangs still......snip, snip, snip. There. That ought to about do it. I lift my hand off her head........crap. I try to go back and correct the unattractive and unintended slope (ok, several slopes) to her bangs. Lifting my hand again, I realize what I have created is irreversible and worthy of being reported to the CPS. Poor little Annie is searching for some reassurance in my eyes or expression that tells her she still looks beautiful. She comes up empty. I tell her to "wait right there" as I run to go get Steve. I knew I was going to catch some flack for this one and just wanted to get it over with. "Hey Steve?........um, you might want to come look at Annie. I think I really messed up." He comes down stairs and out to the porch. His lack of words and emotionless stare are what started me giggling...because, well, there was just nothing else I could do. He starts to say something to me in regards to how irresponsible I am but I am lost, gone and swept away by a laughter that has hijacked me. I am now laughing so hard, I can't see through my tears and am struggling to breath. In order to get the breath I need with my swollen belly, I literally have to go down on all fours. By this time, Annie is horrified. She starts to cry and I have no way to comfort her because.....well, let's just say it, I'm a DORK. I pull myself together enough to try to reassure her that she looks fine and that hair does grow. She's not buying any of it and neither is Steve. He takes her by the hand and leads her off curtly saying that he's taking her to SuperCuts to get it fixed. Right. Good Luck. She didn't even have enough bangs left to fix. When they come back, she looked like a mini version of the Dumb and Dumber character played by Jim Carrey AND she was not happy. All I could say to Annie was "Well sweetheart, now you can see!" My approval rating as a Mom hit an all time low with Annie. But, like I said, hair grows back and so, eventually, did her love for me. And hence, my journal entry that night was: Note to self: Never cut bangs in the wind.