What are you doing this weekend? I don’t even KNOW what I’m doing. Or maybe I do? I think my mom and I have plans to maybe go shopping? And while we do that, my dad is going to examine this segment of siding that has decided it is a ruffle. And then maybe I will make dinner? My husband also said something about going to look at outdoor furniture??? Was that this weekend???
I feel so overwhelmed by life – all good things!! everything is good and happy and extremely stressful! – that I can literally only think about the step immediately ahead of me. Right now, that looks drinking some water (per Sarah) and making lunch and doing a tiny brain dump.
- This Is Just Mean: As you may have gleaned, I have been in such a state of frazz. SUCH A STATE. I keep doing this thing where my brain will smugly prank me and – this requires an example. I was sitting at Carla’s sports practice,
scrolling through Twittertrying to work on my sorely neglected novel, when all of a sudden I saw a tweet that said, simply, “One word to describe Cancers” and my brain helpfully said “Your friend H is a Cancer.” And then my body went cold and my heart skipped because a) H is not a Cancer but b) her birthday was ten days ago did I even acknowledge it????
I did acknowledge it, both via text and in person, but it still took me several nearly-avoided-a-car-accident moments to recover from the horror of potentially forgetting a friend’s birthday. WHAT THE HELL, BRAIN?
Especially what the hell because this has been happening all week. Little pinches in the back of the thigh that have been wildly (if momentarily) terrifying and – so far – completely unhelpful. I am doing the things, I guess, even if I am apparently not making a mental record of them having been done.
- I’m A Lot Like You: My brain has also been doing that thing (HI NICOLE) where it hyperfocuses on one or two lines of a single song, and then blares those two lines ad infinitum into my skull in the middle of the night. (The song in question is El Scorcho, which I quite like as long as I don’t think too hard about the lyrics.) (The narrator is an entitled dick, is my view when I do think about the lyrics, which I have been a lot because they are always elbowing into my thoughts. A girl does not owe you her interest simply because you have a thing for her. Also, maybe don’t read girls’ diaries?)
- Tiny Weezer Fan: Speaking of Weezer, if you also have a tiny Weezer fan in your household, I just ordered this T-shirt for Carla. It will be one of her birthday presents and I am so excited for her to open it.
- Rev-Up of the Birthday Sads: We are getting SO CLOSE to Carla’s tenth birthday. I am excited and happy because it is a joy to see her grow up, but I am also a little sad. On the way to camp this morning, I literally started crying in the car simply because I thought about one specific moment from her birth. She was born with the umbilical cord around her neck, and was whisked away to the NICU pretty immediately after she was born. I couldn’t move my legs because of the epidural, plus I was shaky and vomity after giving birth, so I remember shrieking at my husband that he needed to go with her. She was brand new! And now she was all alone! Don’t let her be alone!!!! Obviously everything turned out just fine, but the thought of that little new-to-the-world infant, wrenched from her warm cozy womb into a cacophony of unfamiliar blaring light and sound, and then instantly separated from the voices she was accustomed to… Oh my god, it just breaks my heart. Still.
- Shellacking the Sad with Other Anxiety! Yay!: So instead of thinking about and possibly dealing with my Feelings, I am masking the sadness with ridiculous worries that are not worries. My latest: Ten is a special age! Should I be doing Something Special? Like, especially special? We are having dinner at Carla’s favorite restaurant with all her grandparents, and then we’ll come home to eat cake (she now wants a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream topped with raspberries, raspberry jam in between the layers, and a raspberry coulis on the side. “Simple,” she said.) (Maybe something like this? With vanilla instead of raspberry buttercream? Or this one, although it’s got cream cheese frosting instead of buttercream? Or this one, which sounds just right but has a few unusual ingredients that are making me squinty?) and open presents. Is there some sort of special You Are Ten type of gift I should be getting her? What is memorable about your tenth birthday? Or the tenth birthdays of people in your life? Can it just be a normal birthday or do I need to do something extra? And if “yes to extra,” what should that be??? Look at that. I am feeling less sad and more stressed as I type!
- Pool Hair Do Care: Let’s ABRUPTLY change subjects! Carla is doing a lot of swimming this summer and her hair is not loving it. She has fine hair. It’s light in color. It’s long (below her shoulders). And it’s wavy. This plus repeated chlorine exposure all adds up to hair that feels brittle and does not brush well. I bought some special shampoo and conditioner designed to help with chlorine removal, but either Carla isn’t using enough of it or it needs more time to work. I’ve tried forcing her to wear a swim cap, but a) I can’t police her at camp and b) she’s already lost one swim cap and the other is so tight it gives her headaches and c) it doesn’t seem like the swim caps are actually water tight anyway. I am NOT a swimmer so if you have any swim-related advice, hair specific or other, I would welcome it.
- Bloggy Book Club: I used the shampoo/conditioner purchase as an excuse to buy a copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I am eager to read as part of Engie’s bloggy book club in July. Are you joining us? I started reading it to Carla this week and her initial impression is that it is boring. I am not sure if she will have a secondary impression because she keeps rejecting my attempts to keep reading. We haven’t even made it through the first chapter! (I do not think it is boring. I think it’s fascinating.) It’s been more than a decade since I first read (listened to) this book, and I’m really excited to see if I love it as much on a second read as I did the first time.
- Summer Skirt Success: I think I already mentioned this, but I went on a bit of a buying binge in May and got a bunch of cute dresses. This skirt was among them and I wore it for the first time this week and LOVED IT. It is super light, and so long it skims the tops of my feet. I wore it with this bodysuit, which I also surprisingly really like. It’s a nice thick material so that you can’t see a bra underneath it. Well, I didn’t wear, like, a bright purple bra under it or anything so YMMV, I guess. But it’s very soft and I like how smmoth-to-the-body it is compared to a T-shirt; I always feel frumpy when I try to pair a T-shirt with a skirt, but perhaps that’s user error.
All right, I think that’s all I have today. Thanks, as usual, for listening. While things are no less busy around here – and are about to get even busier and more full of change – at least my houseguests are gone and I have the house to myself once more. Laundry is laundrying, the dishwasher is running (somehow we used every single non-specialty drinking glass that I own), and I am starting to feel a teensy bit more normal. My head is still full of Weezer, though. How stupid is it? I can’t talk about it. I gotta sing about it and make a record of my heart.
I have loved Weezer for so long and have been introducing my daughter to them, but she does side-eye me at some of the lyrics, sigh…. We also have a 10th birthday coming up later this summer and it has me in such a tailspin: emotionally around how can I have parented for a decade? Shouldn’t I be better at this!?!? And coordinationally in planning the celebration where she actively does not want her party on her actual birthday (a Saturday where more friends are free) because that is when her family makes her feel special, but on the Sunday (which is the day before we leave for vacation and already a no for close friends)… this is more of a solidarity-themed “look at us doing the thing! we can do this!” comment than ideas for you, haha! Have fun with your weekend!
I love some solidarity!!! And my daughter said the other day something about when she was a grown up in eight years… and I had to do a double take. EIGHT YEARS? That’s all I’ve got left? Okay, now I am crying again, whoops!
Oh my stars, that got me in the feels, too!! Time is wild…
10 years old is a milestone! The cake looks yummy although I’m more of a carrot or hummingbird type. Raspberry is one of my favorite flavors though! Busy and happy stress is still stress. Changes, even positive ones, shake up and transform our world, leaving us a bit off balance for a while. No plans for the weekend except mowing my lawn and being out in the 80 degree weather.
Your weekend plans sound simultaneously relaxing and productive! Enjoy!
I like the look of the recipe for vanilla cake made with vanilla bean paste. That’s something new to me, the paste not the idea for a vanilla cake. To be clear.
I’m sorry the shampoo isn’t working. I don’t know that I’ve ever found a way to get chlorine out of my hair, so I’m of little help here. Just maybe offering sympathy for the problem?
Vanilla bean paste is wonderful! And for some reason it is much less expensive than vanilla extract. I love to plop in a tablespoon of the paste for all sorts of baked goods.
Will look for it. Thanks for the info
I have not tried this personally because we are all dark thick haired over here, but I have heard the way to prevent chlorine damage to hair is to get it wet with regular water first so that the chlorine water can’t soak in. Some people also do leave in conditioner first as another layer over the hair before they go into the water. Your mileage may vary but living in a swim climate, this is what I have heard around.
This is very, very helpful. Thank you!
I went pool-swimming a lot as a teenager, when I cared very much about my hair, and I remember hearing the tip herewegoajen mentioned about getting the hair wet first; I used to get it wet at home and then put a little leave-in conditioner in it and braid it snugly, in the hopes that the braid would also help keep the chlorine out. I hated the pool showers (SO COLD AND GROSS) but I would also rinse my hair immediately after swimming, and then when I got home I would shower and use the chlorine-removing shampoo, followed by conditioner, and a leave-in conditioner for good measure. PLUS, I used to get perms and highlights, and my hairstylist sold me what I thought was going to be an utter scam (an expensive two-step intensive conditioner which I think I put on and then wore under a shower cap for a few hours? the memory is patchy) but it turned out to be so great and I used it until I moved away and my new stylist had no idea what I was talking about.
Pool showers are, I think, universally disgusting. Dank and filthy.
I think I have an intensive conditioner (a “masque” perhaps?) somewhere that I can try but clearly I need a leave in conditioner too!
I have been listening to a podcast (60 Songs that Explain the 90s) and so I have been on a 90s music kick that has led to my husband carefully writing out a Radiohead primer for me, so I’m all immersed in emo Radiohead and feeling like a 16-year-old boy in 1995 and really enjoying myself. Maybe next I will ask for a Weezer primer.
I was busy listening to Garth, Brooks & Dunn, Reba, Martina, Shania, and Mary Chapin Carpenter in the 1990s and feel like there’s so much music out there I missed. But country from the 90s is awesome too.
Why am I telling you this? I don’t know. Back to my Radiohead homework.
Oh yes, I have a soft spot for 90s country. (I think you and I may have talked about this before?) So much of it is SO good. But I also like Radiohead! I have been to very few concerts in my life (too loud, too many people) but Weezer and Radiohead are two of the ones I’ve attended.
As for this weekend, The Husband has an event that he would like me to attend. I do not want to attend an event full of strangers…obviously, I’m still on the fence about it.
I feel you on the Birthday Sads; I experienced this every year for my son. I think maybe a couple of years ago, the Sads went away only to be replaced with a feeling of “How the hell did he get to be this old?” Which then led to me realizing that, huh – so I guess I must be much older than I feel most days, which is demoralizing, to say the least (I don’t recommend this, by the way).
Ten, to me is not a memorable birthday. But it IS hitting the double digits. So, go with your gut on this one regarding a special gift.
Pairing t-shirts with a skirt IS hard. The shirt in question, needs to be fitted and the hem to hit at just the right length – which never works for me unless I were to hem every single t-shirt (which I’m not going to do); otherwise it needs to be tucked in – but not TOO tucked in. It’s a tricky balance.
I would think that a hair masque or leave in conditioner might help Carla’s hair. It seems to me that chlorine is very drying so infusing the hair with more moisture might do the trick.
Oh, and thanks for the heads up on vanilla paste – I will have to try that sometime soon.
Well, if you decide to attend the event I hope it is mercifully swift and painless! You definitely understand how hard it is to find a T-shirt for a skirt! It is so impossible!
Oh, that cake sure sounds amazing. I don’t think we did anything special for our daughter’s 10th birthday, just a party with a few of her friends.
I have ‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ mixed in my mind with ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’, I think because I read them both at around the same time and I loved them both. I think I’m going to join the discussion. I wonder if I still have it around here somewhere? If not, there’s the library I guess.
No weekend plans I don’t think…last weekend was busy though.
Yes, join us!
I have never read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter — perhaps I should add that to my list!
I love that Weezer tee! I’m happy that you’re going shopping with mom. I remember when my parents moved up to be closer to us, and I was SO EXCITED to go shopping with her. Those “little things” are never taken for granted. Enjoy! 💕
Right?! So fun to just be able to get together at the last minute!
My kids had pretty normal-for-us parties and presents when they turned ten. Come to think of it, though, my own 10th birthday party was kind of unusual. It took place in a park near a canal and we all rode a mule-drawn canal boat and my mom made a cake that looked like a pirate chest. But I don’t know if the extra effort was because I was turning ten or just what I wanted that year.
I swim about once a week, which may not be the frequency you’re dealing with, but I find washing my hair immediately afterward (at the pool if possible, home if not) with regular shampoo does the trick. Also, my hair is not fine, which could make a difference.
Your tenth sounds wonderful! I will try to enforce the hair washing right after swimming. Sometimes difficult though, but we’ll try!
BODYSUITS ARE BACK. Wow, does that bring back memories of awkwardly trying to do up the snaps in the washrooms of the bar after a few drinks. It’s like, am I copping a feel of my own self here? Not that I’m nightclubbing anymore so that in particular wouldn’t be a problem but still. I might let that one lie BUT it is a very neat and cute look with the right bottom (that skirt is cute too).
Vanilla with raspberry sounds honestly amazing.
WEEZER! The boys laugh about Weezer a lot, and recently made me listen to their version of Enter Sandman which is very strange but also enjoyable? They laugh about it but they like to listen to it too, if that makes sense. J is on a huge country kick lately (maybe because he has a truck now? Idk) and the theme of country songs really hasn’t changed.
I don’t THINK we did anything particularly special for the 10th birthdays, other than regular birthday party and celebration. Oh wait, I think we were in Maui for M’s 10th birthday, just coincidentally. But I don’t think we had a special gift or anything. They both got a very special combo grad/ 18th birthday gift (J got his early since he turns 18 in Sept) and their grandparents gave them a watch when they turned 16, but I’m pretty sure 10 was just regular stuff.
I am joining the book club, and I got the book on Kindle for $1! So that was exciting.
If comment gets any longer I should just go write a blog post. Byeeee.
They are back, baby! Body suits are everywhere!
I love long comments!!!
I read ATGIB when I was 9 and have loved it ever since– can’t wait for the re-read.
Don’t sweat the hair stuff. Get a trim at the end of the summer and it’ll go back to normal. Dorothy washes with baby shampoo every time she swims (sometimes 3 times a day) and slathers with leave-in conditioner when she brushes, and it’s fine. A little slick and green-ish on the ends but it really does go back to normal. (she HATES swim caps and will only wear them at meets).
This is very comforting, Sarah! Thanks!
I am so excited to re-read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I bought a copy and it’s sitting in my bedside table drawer and I am counting down the days until Engie’s book club starts!
Woo hoo!
I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the first time for a book club last week! I loved it.
Yay! I can’t wait to read it again!
I have no memory of my 10th birthday. I don’t think it needs to be extra special but we are not big celebration people. Like other people might be appalled by the lowkeyness of all birthdays in our house. It’s a vibe we have in our house with 2 very practical and left brained people. I feel fine about it but have some guilt when I see photos with piles of presents others get their kids (the kids usually get 2 gifts. Well Paul does – we have yet to buy a present for Will because he hasn’t been old enough to know who the presents are from and he gets more than enough from extended family. Am I sounding like a monster yet??)
My niece has her golden birthday on 9/12 so I do want to do something a little special for that. But 10? We haven’t done anything special. But I am probably not the person to ask this question of. 😉 I am probably the anti-hero of bday celebrations!!
I love how practical you are! Very smart!
I’m my culture (Russian) we have significa birthdays on 1, 3, 5,10, and 16. I don’t remember anything special for my 10 year birthday. For my kids I will probably ask them where as in what country/state they wish to visit and budget for that.
Travel as a birthday gift is so wonderful!
I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to my daughter at about the same age and it was slow to peak her interest but then she got into it. I hadn’t read it since I was a kid, though, so the child molester scene in it took me by surprise. I can across it without warning and at the time I wasn’t into getting into that with my kid, so did some last minute skipping, but it would have been good to know about ahead of time!
Oooh I have no recollection of that scene! I am going to read ahead for sure. Thanks for the heads up!
For my girl’s 10th birthday, I did a small, simple photo album highlighting each year. Like, “for your first birthday we had a small party and so and so joined us”…then I added a few photos from their first year and some fun stickers.
Since they are now 27 and almost 30 (!!), why do I have these books at my house when they both have homes?
Suzanne, I giggled at Carla’s desire for a simple cake…but with specifications, SHE IS YOUR DAUGHTER. 😜😉
I ordered the book, too, and am hoping to join in on the fun!
Hahaha – SIMPLE BUT HIGHLY SPECIFIC. My child through and through!
I felt SO similarly when my kids turned 10. I ended up writing a poem for Lad when he turned 10. Then I kept the tradition going and I did it for the rest of them. It was silly at parts and emotional at parts, highlighting some of my favorite memories. I read it aloud to the b-day kid and got choked up every single time, which made my kids cringe. Writing the poem made the 10th bday feel special and memorable. A milestone marker.
Good luck creating that cake. I’m sure it will be delicious.
Awww that’s such a great tradition, Ernie!
For my 10th birthday, I remember just being so thrilled with myself for having reached double digits. I don’t remember any particularly big gifts or celebrations — it was just the fact of the milestone that made it so special in my mind!
I recently read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the first time, and I definitely would recommend reading ahead yourself because there are some adult themes (the child molester, allusions to premarital sex ruining someone’s reputation, Francie’s father’s alcoholism, etc) — just so you’re not blindsided when coming across these themes with Carla (or maybe you can judiciously edit if you’re reading aloud). I did absolutely love it as an adult!!
Hmmm! I remember my son’s 10th birthday but I don’t remember my daughter’s, which is weird. We obviously celebrated, and it was only four years ago. It’s definitely a milestone, but I’m pretty sure you’re already doing a lot to make Carla’s birthday special. I doubt she’ll be disappointed.
I was pretty young when I read ATGIB, but older than ten. I liked “old fashioned” books, but it seems like kids nowadays don’t appreciate things like that. My daughter is really into the Warrior Cats series, about different clans of cats having all sorts of adventures- I’m sure she would think ATGIB is really boring. BUT! I’m joining the book club! I’m just waiting for my copy to be ready at the library. I’m excited.
I love that skirt!
I’m trying to figure out what I did for my 10th birthday! And I don’t remember, lollll. I do remember having a birthday around Thanksgiving always made birthdays hard. BLAH.
That skirt is soooo cute and looks very comfortable. I don’t think I can do long skirts right now (it’s just so hot, I need bare legs) but I’d love to find a cute shorter skirt to wear around.
Actually, my NINTH birthday was more special because I (drumroll) got my ears pierced. 🙂
I think you should do (or, I hope you did) what Carla wants. That, after all, is your best guide.
Skirts. Bodysuits. Both things that I do not currently wear and really can’t see myself adopting. I am so, so glad you found comfortable clothes that fit and that work in your life!