Hair and Makeup ~ Trying Pravana

So I decided to try a new dye. A friend of mine uses it and her hair always turns out so nice! Mine does too but I have perfected the art of hair dying. If I were to go by the instructions on the jar my hair colour would only last a few washes where as when I do it my way I'm still getting compliments even when I've got two inches of new growth (I've actually been rocking the fro for a while now, too hot to flat iron so the poof covers the roots). If I assume my friend is going by the box with her dye, maybe with my method and her dye.... MY HAIR COULD RULE THE PLANET!!! That's what I thought at least. So I had to give it a try. The dye? Pravana Chromasilk VIVIDS. I just wanted to keep it my blue and pink. I mean I had a 212121 decal made for my car in my hair colour! I can't change it now! We match! So I got 2 tubes of blue and a tube of magenta! I have a confession to make... I've been getting lazy lately. I used to use the packets of Quick Blue as I recommended in my how to dye post a while ago but man... I don't wanna! I've been using... A BOX! Gasp! I've been using Clairol's Nice & Easy Born Blonde in Maxi. It doesn't work quite as well but it sure is easier on my hair and it gets it light enough for the colours I've been using.

So Darling Husband bleached my roots and I was ready to dye! This dye comes in a tube instead of a jar so I have to squeeze it out into a colour bowl and apply with a brush.

   

 It smells like a man. Like a hot sexy man. I miss the grape smell of my Punky dye. It is a lot thinner too. Like a light conditioner as opposed to the thick hair mask consistency of my Punky.

 I got it on, put a bag on my head and sat down with my Kindle in one hand and the hair dryer in the other and read and heat processed my bag head. Then I went to bed. Baby Hulk does not like bag head Momma. He kept giving me the bottom lip and looking at me like he was unsure of whether or not I could be trusted. So he was quite happy to see me the next morning after I rinsed it out. It took forever to rinse and I don't like to shampoo the first time after dying. It never runs clear with Punky either but I ended up doing a co-wash to try to get more out. Then I did my vinegar rinse to seal it and finished with the wonderful tube of conditioner that came with the bleach (why don't they sell that conditioner for real!? I love box dye conditioners!). The water that wouldn't run clear caused some run off dying of the blue in the pink so my magenta is a little ombre. So the roots are the proper magenta but the ends are purply.

I don't think I mind. I have a feeling it will look exciting if and when I finally brave the heat with my flat iron. Of course as I do with every new dye job I put on some extra fun makeup because without it I tend to freak out and think I have just made the most horrible mistake in the world.

  I went a little matchy matchy with the fuchsia colour the blue turned most of my magenta and that was when I decided it was truly and okay thing. Yep! I like it. I hope it fades as nicely as Punky does.

 I will do an update after a few washes to let you know how it holds up but right
 now it looks quite nice and Baby Hulk loves me again.


**Update**
I really hate the magenta. It faded sooo fast. I love the blue though. It has lasted well and is really pretty. I still see lots of blue run off when I wet my hair, and the pink is kind of a purply mauve because of it. My hair has a lot more shine to it, even in the faded magenta so I think it was good to my hair even though it faded. All in all I think it is great for your hair, but maybe not for more than one colour at a time, and pinks will need more frequent touch ups. Feel free to share your experiences with other colours in the comments since they seem to vary.

Baby Hulk ~ One Truth, One Tip, One Pic

 I've never done a blog hop before. I don't really understand them. Luckily I have my beloved Buttons! She walked me through what to do even though it was pretty well explained. I needed her assurance and I really wanted to do this one I found on another Down syndrome blog I follow, With A Little Moxie. It looked fun so I decided to make it happen.

One Truth: It's Just Parenting

     When Mr. Grey was born we had to stay in the hospital 3 days because I tested positive for Group B Strep. The morning after we were discharged they called us to tell us to bring him back in, his liver wasn't functioning properly yet.  Jaundice. We stayed in the hospital 3 more days until his biliruben levels were normal.
     When Lumpy was about a month old I noticed a bulge near his groin, it made weird squishy noises if I poked it. He had a weakness in his lower abdominal muscles and his intestines had slipped through. At 2 months old he had a surgery to repair his inguinal hernia.
     Then came Baby Hulk with his extra chromosome! I had really rough starts with ALL of my babies! After you get done being terrified for your baby it's just parenting. You trust your instincts and pick up on cues from your child. Whether they have 2 copies or 3 of the 21st chromosome. Making the best choices you can for them. I made the choice to send Mr Grey to preschool when he was four because he had serious personal space issues. I didn't do it so he could learn his letters and numbers. I did it so he could learn to interact with other kids. I sent 3 year old Lumpy to preschool because he still couldn't count past three! These are decisions I made for my children as a parent based on what I saw from them. I will send Baby Hulk to preschool too. When depends on what I see in him, same as his big brothers.

One Tip: Live in the Present

That was my biggest mistake in the beginning. I was so worried about what could be wrong or what could go wrong. I had a serious case of the "what if's". Right now is where we are and right now is what matters. It is 2013! Science is an amazing thing! Leukemia can be cured! By the time Baby Hulk is an age where we have to worry about Alzheimer there could very well be a cure for that! So let's not worry about it now!

One Picture:

I did it! What fun!

Baby Hulk ~ Service Baby

     Since school let out I have become quite familiar with anxiety attacks. It's pretty bad... like if I were a sane person I would be seeing a therapist and probably be medicated. There is a giant invisible gorilla with his big hands around my neck!!! But I have my own stress reliever. Baby Hulk. He's like a service animal. I should get him a special vest so I can take him into restaurants with me and... oh wait... he is a human baby... he can come into restaurants with me... Well... he needs a vest anyways.
     So when I get out of the shower to discover the other bathroom's floor has been flooded and Lumpy and Mr Grey are using soaked stuffed animals like water balloons, or when Mr Grey and Lumpy climb onto the super high exam table  and then Mr Grey sends Lumpy plummeting to the ground while Baby Hulk's pediatrician watches, in horror. Or the spitting, or the biting. Lumpy opening the door with the red warning on the handle that tells you it is for emergency use only and an alarm will sound! Refusing to stay in their room and running through the house screaming hours after bedtime... When I am to the point where the invisible gorilla is strangling me, I pick up my sweet, good, Baby Hulk, hug him tightly and breathe in deeply, his sweet barfy baby scent. It took me a while to figure out why my baby didn't have that baby smell. Then around four months he started spitting up and suddenly he smelled like a baby! I pick up my sweet baby and a sense of calm washes over me. The gorilla doesn't entirely let go, once it starts he pretty much hangs on until an hour or so after the kids are asleep. But suddenly I don't want to beat them as much. I can think clearly enough to send them to the playroom (I know I never gave you the tour of my new house but it has a playroom... with a door... that I can close).

     On July 3rd Darling Husband took off from work early and we loaded everyone into the car and drove to Bellevue for an ophthalmology appointment for Baby Hulk, all my baby sitter options were unavailable with Buttons out traveling and my poor Momma Pru managed to get pneumonia! Since the monsters were coming I needed wrangling help after that embarrassing ordeal with the pediatrician I was not going at this one alone! So it became a family outing!
     The doctor noticed something Baby Hulk's physical therapist had just been calling torticollis, a slight head tilt, only she had speculations that it might not really be torticollis. She thought it might actually be a misalignment of his eyes!   Baby Hulk really hated the doctor, she kept trying to straighten his head so she could get a look at his eyes and he fought her the whole time and every time she turned her back on him he had quite a lot of horribly rude things to say (I am certain if The Doctor had been there to translate, since he speaks baby, there would have been a lot of bleeping). By the end of the appointment he was extremely cross with her and she had no answers. She wants us to set up another appointment with her in 3 months... le sigh...
     Oh! And do you know how they fix a misalignment? SURGERY!!!! I hope his physical therapist is right. She doesn't think his eyes are the problem. She knows she isn't an eye doctor, but she has worked with a baby who had an eye misalignment before and she says it was completely different. I was already a bit in denial that anything was really wrong with his eyes, but having her say that may have made it worse. I had pretty much given up on the doom. There will be no doom! My baby is healthy as an ox!

     Playing defense for his brothers is serious business so Baby Hulk has had to do some serious working out so he can take on the evil Mommy. He has been working on bulking up and as of 7 months this kid now weight 13lbs 6oz! ...Yeah... that's still tiny huh? And he is a little over 24" long!!!!! Yeah... that's still tiny too... But if you enter in all his stats into the Down syndrome growth chart... well it's still tiny... He is in the 16th percentile for height, and 22nd for weight, BUT he is in the 56th percentile for head circumference! That's just on his own special growth chart. Plug those measurements into the regular growth chart and it comes up "less than 3rd percentile" for both weight and height and 6th percentile for head circumference. Tiny!!!! My 7 month old has hand me downs from a 2 month old! He is between 0-3mo and 3-6mo clothing depending on the brand.
     It's kind of weird, but because of his size it doesn't at all feel like there is anything different about my baby. He looks like he should be doing what he is doing developmentally. He looks like a little baby who should just be learning how to sit unsupported, and chewing his toes. When I look at my other friends' babies I can't imagine him doing the things they are doing at 7 months. Pulling up and cruising and such. He is too tiny! He is just a baby!
      Just when I started to think the amazing and obvious changes and strides he was making in his physical therapy were slowing down, last week happens! He still is only prop sitting, but has gotten so good with it now that he can shift his weight around from one hand to the other so he can play with his toys with the free hand. He rolls to his tummy like it's nothing now, which actually has been causing me quite a bit of grief. The boy now wants to sleep on his tummy... "Back to sleep" has been drilled into my head so thoroughly that I just can't let him sleep on his own now! I end up holding him in bed with me to keep him in the proper position all night. I think I would be okay with his tummy sleeping if he hadn't oh so conveniently forgotten how to roll back onto his back from his tummy! When he started rolling onto his stomach his physical therapist told me she believed he would be rolling around the room in no time.... and then he stopped rolling both ways!
     I was not at all expecting him to be any kind of mobile but then this week he started turning, his belly is his axis as he spins to reach the toys he wants, and then Friday night (7/12) he starts bringing his knees up under him and trying to kick himself forward, and by Saturday he is doing kind of an inchworm move, only somehow it ends up propelling him backwards... but holy cow I wasn't expecting this at all!!!! I'm really proud of my little boy. I think he is proud of himself too.

     And now to catch you up through super cute pictures!

  

7 months old, lounging by the kiddie pool

 First Independence day, kisses from Lumpy, and watching fireworks on the dock at Grandma's house with Stitches and her offspring

Momma lovings

Hanging with the boys

  

Trying to be grown, and give me a heart attack

 

 

 

      I thoroughly intend to keep up my postings this summer although as you already know, I am not good with doing what I say I'm going to do.  I hope you will stick around for my random and occasional posts and maybe I'll even try to take over a little for Buttons and Stitches on Hot Toddies events. There need to be some of those. I miss them!!!! I think a Lady Porn marathon is very much needed in the near future. Remember back in the days before the drum broke when we played Rock Band all the time? Yeah.... I'm thinking maybe we should use the money from our He Had A Plan sales (I still can't believe we wrote a book!) to get some new drums...

Baby Hulk ~ Physical Therapy Becomes an Outing

     Baby Hulk has physical therapy appointments every Tuesday. His PT Annie comes to our house and we sit on the living room floor and work on all kinds of things with Baby Hulk. Pushing up with his arms, putting weight on his feet, balance, extending and flexing, and all sorts of baby work outs. This week things were different. This week we went to her! Annie works with the Olympia school district so it was because of school that she was able to make house visits. Well guess what? Schools out for summer! So now we have to go to her! During summer vacation we shall be visiting her every Tuesday!
     I wasn't sure what to expect. Was it going to be a like a big gym? Foam pits? Trampolines? Kids running around?  I had no clue! Well it was quite boring compared to what I was imagining. Just 2 separate working areas with mats and a little ramp thingy. There was already another therapist there working with a little girl somewhere around the age of Mr Grey (6) and Lumpy(4), who I think may have had cerebral palsy. Her area had hooks and ropes from the ceiling to suspend different equipment from which seemed to be the most exciting thing they had.  Well! Baby Hulk could not disagree more! They had the most fabulous, recalled, musical caterpillar with wobbly rainbow balls that he had ever seen in his entire almost 7 months of life!!!

     He may look a little terrified in that last picture but I assure you. That was his "it's-so-exciting-I-just-might-explode" face that he made whenever we got the rainbow balls wobbling again. He would sit up so straight that he had to bring everything up and back with him. His elbows and even his face. Hence the crazy expression! Go ahead now... try it. Up and back...
...You just made that same face didn't you?
     It was such an exciting hour of therapy that when I looked down at my sweet boy after stepping off the elevator not one minute after walking out of the physical therapy room, I realised my sweet boy was out cold!

I have to say, I am really looking forward to returning next week! He just had so much fun I wish we could go every day! 

Baby Hulk ~ An Update and a Poem

It's been a while! Yet again! So just a quick catching of upping. On May 17th we were taking a break from painting our new house before moving in and we got our first real laugh from Baby Hulk. We had gotten little squeaks and almost laughs but this was a great big chuckle of a baby laugh and it was wonderful. I was super happy Momma Pru was there to witness it with me. I felt it was like her payment for helping us paint. Then on May 27th Baby Hulk rolled over back to tummy! I totally missed it! It happened so fast! I was changing his diaper and looked away from him for the 2 seconds it takes to wrap up a dirty diaper and when I brought my eyes back to him he was suddenly on his tummy!!!! The next couple of times he did it he did it like that. No one saw it happen, he was just suddenly on his tummy! He only just this past Tuesday let his PT see him roll over! I don't think she believed me until she saw it for herself. He also showed her how he can do this now!

 Yup, big boy is now prop sitting too! Rolling back to tummy at five months and prop sitting at six months! After working with us this week, his PT told me, "You know, I think he is the most developmentally on target baby with down syndrome I've ever worked with." I was only a little shocked. He is Baby Hulk after all! I am still so proud of him though! She said in the next month or so she thinks he will be rolling around as transportation. Maybe! But Mr. Grey and Lumpy never did that. Sweet boy is 6 months old now and I am so glad he is mine.

And now my lovely poem! I decided to try my hand at poetry last night. This is what I came up with:

Loading kids into the SUV

My reflection in the door 

I do see

One of these things is not like the other

How you can tell

I'm a breast feeding mother

My left breast is hanging kind of low

It is wobbling

To and fro

I've forgotten that stupid clip yet again

that stupid clip

that holds my tits in

Comfort Works Kramfors Slipcover Review

I made a huge mistake a few years ago and bought a sofa from Ikea... in yellow. To be fair I was a first time mom then and Mr. Grey was only 13 months old. Shortly after purchasing my lovely Kramfors sofa it was discontinued! They stopped making it! And then they stopped making replacement covers! Then shortly after that, baby Mr. Grey vomited pureed carrots down the side of the couch. Since then it has only gotten worse. More kids, more vomit, dirty feet, sticky fingers pet, hair that manages to weave itself into the fabric so the vacuum can't even get it out! I evolved from spot cleaning, to a Bissell Little Green deep cleaning vac, to taking the whole cover off and going to Buttons' house for tea, movies, and washing of my sofa cover in her big washing machine (even though the Ikea label told me not to). Even freshly cleaned it was hideous though. My cat used it as a scratching post, it had so many stains it was just disgusting. I hated the living room. A couch is the centerpiece of the living room and when it looks bad, the whole room looks bad! No one was allowed over besides Baby Hulk's physical therapist, Buttons, and Stitches.

 

Gross stained couch in the old rental house

 Bonney Bad Cat's handy (clawy) work

 A while ago I discovered a site, Comfort Works, that makes covers for Ikea furniture and low and behold, there it was, IKEA Kramfors sofa slipcover. My sofa could be saved! Back then I was thinking maybe a faux leather sofa would be good. They look nice and I could wipe the vomit off! Well I finally had the money to get my cover and I looked and all I saw was real leather. It just felt wrong to me. A vegetarian animal lover lounging on cow carcass. So I sent them a blank email... Yup. Blank email with the subject line: "did I imagine them?"I don't know what I was doing! I sent it from my failing iPhone 3 so I will blame it. A nice man named Henry responded "what did you imagine exactly :)" And so it carried on, he helped me to decide on a heavy duty material, that my evil kitty won't try to destroy as she most certainly would have with leather, and that I can just throw in the wash when it gets bad! Then he sent me swatches! I love swatches! When they arrived I narrowed it down to 3 colours and then put them through vigorous testing. I took my children's left over lunch scraps, the crust of a PB&J and smeared it on each swatch. I smeared them in pancake syrup, ran them through the tread of my boys rain boots, threw them in the corner that collects all the pet hair, and then for good measure, I stuck them in the cushions of my couch cushions. They had to know what they would be expected to put up with!

 Look at the fun little packaging it came in!

 swa-wa-wa-watches!

 Kino Brown didn't fair so well with the peanut butter or pet hair

 

Oh Taupe, you were so pretty before I shoved you in my couch

Charcoal didn't do so well with the syrup but... I see no pet hair!!!

 I then wiped them all up with a baby wipe because that is this lazy ass housewife's quick spot cleaning method. Well the verdict was in and I was going with the Kino in charcoal! the whole part where it didn't show my white cat, OR black dogs horrible hair won my heart. I would simply have to make a new rule about sticky children not leaving the kitchen.  I ordered it and when it finally arrived it sat in the box and taunted me for weeks because Darling Husband told me I could not put it on until we were moved into our new house! Well, I made it and we have moved aaannnnd....

 

Before 

(during the move the cat vomited on a cushion and then the zipper broke!)

  

After 

(why is everyone on the floor!?)

  

I love it! The cover went on a lot easier than the yellow one but fits just as well and it doesn't have cheap plastic zippers, these babies look pretty heave duty. The colour is actually kind of a bluish grey which I was not expecting, although when I google "charcoal grey", it does come up a blueish grey, I couldn't tell that from the swatch but I still really like it. Besides, a problem with the yellow cover was dye transfer from denim jeans so the bluish undertones will probably help with that! I have already had to wipe it off a few times with my trusty baby wipes but they have done the job, and when the day comes, I have been given permission to throw it in the wash! Baby Hulk's physical therapist and my Dad both asked if I got a new couch. It looks so good! I need to get some fun new throw pillows for it now. Something to tie it in with my chair. I love my new old couch!

 Baby Hulk approved! ...although he looks a little disguntled here...

 Thank you, Henry, and everyone else at Comfort Works who took part in making my ugly sofa into a beautiful swan...sofa...swan...

Baby Hulk ~ Physical Therapy

 Things seem to be picking up around here. Baby Hulk is suddenly growing like a weed. I have no idea how much he weighs but it's become an actual workout when I raise him over my head like a baby airplane. He is getting that stocky baby feel. You finally don't have to be afraid of breaking him.

Things were going so slowly before. I was secretly starting to feel discouraged again. Not horribly discouraged, it was easy for me to just look at my amazingly healthy baby boy and not care, it is what it is! But his spine was curved. It wasn't straightening out like it should. When you held him up in a seated position his head slumped forward and he couldn't breathe. It was frustrating even though I knew this was normal. My group of moms on Facebook with babies the same age as Baby Hulk are always posting videos of the things their babies are doing. Baby Hulk doesn't laugh or squeal like their babies do. He isn't crawling or sitting up or rolling all over the floor. It was discouraging at first but around Lump's 4th birthday I was looking at baby pictures of him and found a video of when he first started laughing. He was 5 months old! Or sitting unassisted, he was 6 months old! So I started paying closer attention in my group. It's always the same moms. The same moms with their super advanced babies are the ones to share their videos.  I can't compare my baby to everyone else's babies, and  people don't post things to say "my baby still can't sit in the Bumbo".

He has taken off lately with his physical therapy. So much so that his PT has bumped up his sessions from every other week to once a week. Every Tuesday while Lumpy is at school and Mr. Grey is at library story hour with Momma Pru, Baby Hulk's PT comes over. We put out his blanket, toys and his play mat and get to work. At first I was horrified by the idea of someone coming to my house, seeing the mess. Secretly judging me and my failures as a housewife but I quickly realised, that's not why she is here! She hadn't even noticed one of my sofa cushions was missing a cover and had a towel over it because the cat had puked on it and the zipper broke so it couldn't be replaced! She is there for Baby Hulk and he is all she sees.  I really love her. She is great with Baby Hulk, he never fusses with her. He puts up with all the work she makes him do and each week I sit by the window excited for her to pull up so I can show her this new thing he is doing. Currently we are working on him pushing up with his arms. He has been doing this super cute swimming thing this week. He is trying to crawl but he arches his back so his arms are not making contact. He balances on his belly and kicks his feet into the ground and does a butterfly stroke with his arms.  Super cute but we have a new set of exercises to do with him to strengthen his arms and help him to push up so he can actually get somewhere! This will also help with sitting since when babies first learn to sit they are able to stay up by putting their hands on their legs or floor and pushing up.

 

(baby hulk and his PT working on those arms)

I love physical therapy! It is so exciting to hear how much he is improving every week! Who cares about all the crawling and rolling and sitting and squealing of other babies. Baby Hulk is the one who truly amazes me!