Hey Kids, Is It Time for School Yet?

Coco has created a small domestic crisis every morning since she turned three. There was the eyeshadow pencil incident.

The "let's have breakfast outside" idea that turned into two bloody knees and a screaming three-year-old. The less explicable "woke up on the wrong side of the bed" grumpiness, the "Zuzu gave me a pedicure" morning

and on Saturday, the haircut she administered on herself.

This picture is the best "before" I have, in terms of showing length and bangs:

And "after" she chopped it herself.

You'll remember I was on campus at meetings Saturday, so I consider myself blameless for this one, but as a PSA, I will say that kids can reach drawers you think they can't reach, particularly when they carry stools in from down the hall. Coco is really interested in "zizzers" these days and she located the actual scissors I use for cutting their hair (I still cut their hair myself, based on years of intently watching my hairdresser to see what she does when she's cutting my hair, because I think it's fun and also I'd rather spend money on something besides kid hair cuts). Anyway, she used my super sharp purple hair scissors (in retrospect, I probably should have selected a less interesting color than purple) and she basically just trimmed around her ears and a little off the top in the front.

You know what style that is, right?

Yeah... So then I tried to trim it up. I took over an inch off the back, but it's not like I can cut a bob that hits ABOVE her ears. So she basically has a kind of pixie cut that's uneven around her ears and has a small chunk of bangs missing in front. Zuzu kept saying Coco has "boy hair" and I kept launching into gender fluidity lectures about how boys can have long hair and girls can have short hair and people can have any kind of hair they want, stop being so binary, obviously you've been watching too much Disney.

Coco as Prince Charming

Zuzu would appear to listen to these lectures and then turn around and say to Coco, "Let's play that we're married and you're the boy."

After bath... you can see the strategic comb-over that's mostly hiding a chunk of bangs she cut super short. We've been working on her bangs for THREE YEARS!

Anyway, haircuts aside, they played outside so much yesterday afternoon. It was a dream come true. David set up their little tiny playhouse in the woods and they gathered rocks and climbed on the swingset and just played while I sat and read a book (and also read stuff about Charlottesville on my phone and finally had to go put my phone away because the comment sections on FB were a reminder of why we're in this mess). It was really the sweetest thing to sit out in the perfect weather in August and watch the girls play and enjoy themselves just the way we imagined they would when we first talked about buying this house.

But after an idyllic afternoon, yesterday evening did not go well on the home front. We had been to a swimming party in the morning and Coco fell asleep in the car on the way home and Zuzu almost did, so they were both tired but of course no one wanted to nap after we were home, and I didn't insist on rests later in the afternoon because they were playing so peacefully in the backyard and I didn't want to throw off bedtime. But meal time was off because of all the donuts and fruit they'd eaten late morning, which made them not want any lunch and just ask for popsicles around 2pm. At 4:00pm, Zuzu came in and got mad at me over something (I truly have no idea what upset her) and she threw a lunch box full of markers all over the kitchen and as I stared at her, flabbergasted and completely pissed off, I realized she was probably hungry. Sure enough, they both ate fruit, cheese, bread, and two generous helpings of pesto pasta before 5pm, and then Zuzu was her sweet self again (she's basically one of those Snickers commercials).

As I was cleaning up the kitchen, they went on upstairs and I told them to get ready for baths. When I walked upstairs, I smelled something delicious, unusual yet familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

I found the girls in my bathroom and the scent turned out to be the bottle of really nice bubble bath that had been a birthday present in honor of me having a master bathroom and a deep bathtub for the first time in my life.

You know who hasn't yet taken a bubble bath in the new house? Me.

You know whose entire bottle of bubble bath was poured down the drain yesterday? Mine.

I wanted to scream, but instead I just sighed in defeat, dragged the two of them down the hall to their own bathroom to get in the tub, and then declared my bathroom off-limits. No kids in there at all ever. I explained that they don't make good decisions in that room, so they can't go in there at all anymore.

In spite of exhaustion, soothing baths, and a million stories last night, bedtime did not go smoothly. Actually, Coco fell asleep while we wer ereading, which was the sweetest thing ever. But then Zuzu ended up waking her up, which made me feel so angry that I had to opt out of going upstairs because I was BEYOND my parenting patience threshold, so David went up there, but he couldn't get them to settle because he really wanted to be downstairs where had paused GoT to deal with their shenanigans and finally I went upstairs and said Coco would sleep in her own room because obviously they couldn't handle sharing a room, so then Coco was devastated and sobbing, and then I got her to bed and went to take a shower because Zuzu STILL wasn't settled/asleep, but then Coco was crying again, so David ended up bringing her into Zuzu's room and lying down with both of them until they were both asleep.

By that time, we were too tired to watch GoT.

So basically, it's been a fantastic summer. And now I'm totally ready for school to start.