wake up

On my way to pick up Espen yesterday my mom called to let me know that they weren't at Jen's house. They were just north of her street watching a broken down car hauler being towed by a gigantic tow truck.

When I got there Espen and Levi were screaming, they were so excited. It was pretty funny seeing such a huge vehicle being towed by an equally huge one.

  When we got home last night there was a package for me at the door. Espen picked it up, brought it in and opened it.  Such a good little helper. When he opened it he was like 'What is this???'. He was so confused but insisted that he be the one to 'put it together'...which meant plugging in the AC adapter to the back. What came next was amazing. I don't think Espen's ever seen or played with something like this before. He played with the dials and knobs and everytime he heard something new he'd cock his head from side to side like a dog when they hear something strange. The next thing you know, Espen is dancing around our room, so fast that I could hardly capture him on film.

What was this mystery object that arrived on our doorstep? Why, it's an old school lookin' clock/radio! I've needed a normal alarm clock for ages. I've been using my cell phone as an alarm since before Espen was born. The most recent cell phone has too many bells and whistles when it comes to it's alarm so I end up snoozing for 2 hours, hitting a wrong button to make it shut off or I just sleep through it. I hate the look of basic black clocks with red digital displays. We had one that hid behind our bed and displayed the time on our ceiling, that one was nice...but I wanted something, if it was going to sit on my dresser all the time, that would be cute to look at. I have had this clock on my wish list since Christmas and it finally went on sale so now it's mine. It even has a plug for my iPod so last night we got a little bit of 'The World New's on PRI, some Pimsleur while I cleaned up and some sweet jazz listening in.

{this is what I imagine it once looked like on film}

When this thing went off this morning I thought there was a fire in the house. Espen shot up out of bed cracking up yelling 'you hear that??!! That's my mom's new alarm clock!!'. Uh, ya buddy, I heard it, loud and clear. I was scrambling to find the off button which seemed to last 5 minutes till BAM, I finally found it. I will not have any trouble waking up with this bad boy but I think I may have to either move it away from my bed so I'll have to physically get up to turn it off or leave my phone alarm on for back up because it's one of those 'when it's off, it's off' kind of alarms.

I hung a few pictures up last night. My Deer Wearing Gym Socks and a picture of Espen from his 1st birthday invite. I also put up a little pop-art Elvis in our mini hallway (if you can even call it that) Can a 3x3 square be considered a mini hall.
Espen loved the pictures on the wall, he said it's like 'Tricia's house, you know mom, she has those on the wall too'. Sure Espen.

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Side note
I may not be the first person to do this...and if you know of a better way to do this let me know. But this past week I have, get this, safety pinned my shirts to my undergarments aka chonies so that my shirts don't ride up and I'm not constantly re-tucking. Works like a charm!! The only bad part is when I have to use the bathroom. Ha.

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One more thing. I think at some point my closest friends have seen what my hair looks like after a blow dry but before I take a curling or straight iron to it. It's huge, huge and frizzy, like a lions mane! It's awful and I have always hated the fact that it's so damaged and gross. Would I ever be able to just have a nice blow dry and be done with it. Well, today is that day. I am, for the first time in 10 years, (when did flat irons become a phenomenon? Circa 1998 or 2000 Grammy Awards Madonna) anyway, it's been a long time.

I was going to get my hair trimmed every 6-8 weeks for the next 6 months, but seriously, who has time or money for that. Besides, the last 2 trims I got really did the trick. And it happened in a 2-fold type of way.

1. Roberto's hair cuts-Allison, I know you have had some not so good cuts with him but somehow I always leave happy. I've seen him twice since my birthday in January and I think I am good to go for a while except for the bangs, the bangs will need some additional TLC. But the rest of it, although it's not perfect, is pretty good.

2. Products- Just like safety pinning one's shirts to their skivvies, people I'm sure already know the importance of hair products but for some reason, of all the lotions and potions and clothes and shoes I never really gave hair product a lot of thought. That is until some crazy haired girl at Toni & Guy was assigned to wash out my color and 'power dry' (T&G lingo) my hair. This girl used 3 separate products on my hair when it was wet. Spray on leave in conditioner/heat protection, smoothing lotion, shine serum. She barely touched the flat iron to my hair when she was done and when I left I left with doll hair. It was the strangest thing I had ever felt. I almost had a heart attack when the girl at the front desk told me the heat protector alone was $30! Uh, I'll pass, thanks. But the next day I went to CVS and bought a leave in conditioner/heat protector and shine serum, which were both drastically discounted to $6 total!! haha. I already had the smoothing lotion at home. My hair hasn't been the same since and this morning, I took just a few minutes more with my brush and dryer and voila. Soft, shiny frizz free hair without the damaging hot tools. I'm kind of embarrassed or more or less shocked that it's taken me this long to figure this out...but who cares, I did and I will continue to share the knowledge. It shall be up there now with the importance of wearing a bra and how to safety pin your shirts to your underwear.