Hair and Grace

The haircut went surprisingly well. I was convinced that Hurricane would scream and possibly try to bite the stylist or maybe eat the comb she had given him to play with. Instead he smiled liked an angel and held perfectly still. He giggled when she used the clippers. In the end, we can actually see his eyes and I've been informed that I must stop calling him a hippie since he can no longer pull off a ponytail.
Mr X also got a haircut. I'm telling you this only because I had shaved his head in August and the stylist still had to sweep up hair 3 times during his cut.
I married wolfboy.
Maybe not, but sometimes it seems like it. Like when we first started dating and his chest was totally bare.
Internet? I could totally braid his chest now. Give him some corn rows.
I broke my little mini shaver giving him 2 eyebrows that didn't grow out from his temples.
One day a hair appeared in the middle of his forehead where no hair should be. He wouldn't let me yank it, claiming that he was like Sampson and this hair, this single out of place hair was the source of his strength.
I ignored it for as long as I could but it was staring at me. We'd be eating dinner and my eyes would inevitably be drawn to that interloper, waving at me as if to say "PPPBBFFFFTTTTTTT!"
So I waited until he was asleep and then yanked it.
***This is the part where Mr X would normally lament his poor Sampson hair, but I promised not to mention the time he threw out the embroidered hankie my great-grandmother and I worked on together if he stopped whining about that stupid hair.***
Hurricane also got his first black eye this weekend beating his sister by 6 months. Actually, it was a rough weekend in general for falling. Friday he took a dive off the porch into the driveway in an effort to escape the terrifying rock that was at the bottom of our steps. He landed on his face and scraped his forehead and cheek. The black eye came from when he tried to ride Cat and instead ended up smashing his face into the table. He also has a cut and bruise on his nose. He bent down to pick up a toy but he was too close to the entertainment center and hit that instead.
It makes it that much more fun to go out. You know, more fun in the sense that people think we've been beating him with a belt.
Let me set the record straight. We beat him with frying pans. Right after we let him run with scissors. We also encourage our kids to take candy from strangers. That way we don't have to pay for it. I taught Girl X to always tell people at the door that she's home alone because I sure as hell don't want to talk to them. Recently we've been teaching them the joys of playing with fire.
Looks like Hurricane is going to have his Daddy's hair and my gracefulness.

Poor kid is going to be mistaken for a drunk Bigfoot.

My Green (and Black and Blue and Purple) Thumb

Gardening is not my forte. Wow. That's really putting it nicely.
My MIL gave us some roses to plant when we bought our house. I don't really like roses, but it was easier to put them in than it would have been to deal with the fall out of not using them. So, I planted them along the side of the house.
And she wouldn't speak to us for 2 weeks because we had not dug up the wisteria and put them out front as she had envisioned.
One of them looks normal. Maybe 2 feet high, blooms regularly but not overly abundant. Just normal.
The other is about 8 or 9 feet tall and blooms all summer.
I don't think that's what it was supposed to do. It looks more tree than flower. Our tiny red maple that started as one simple shoot has multiplied like a bunny. It now has 7 different trucks. And then there are the Others. The unidentifiable plants that have taken up residence under the tree in an effort to keep me from trying to cut it down. The rhododendron is now this unruly monstrosity threatening my porch. I think I killed the lavender last year.
I tend to do that. Kill plants. They see me coming with a watering can and those gardening shears and they decide it will be quicker and less painful to simply die right then.
Before spring really starts I thought I'd go out and try to get some kind of handle on my little garden.
I left the rhododendron because I have no idea where to begin and I really love it's brilliantly purple blooms. I don't want to kill it. I've actually contemplated asking my MIL for help (which should tell you how desperate I am) because her yard looks like where flowers go to retire. And die. Because she thinks even dead flowers are pretty. But at least she would know what to do with my poor overgrown rhodie.
I started clipping away at the Others. Some of them had little splintery thorns. I didn't see them. I felt them. Feeling them is always ever so much more fun.
I had to stop to pull out all those little splintery things and ow. My hands look like those little tomato pin cushions.
Still I went back for more. This time, I brought gloves. Let's not go over why I didn't just wear them in the first place.
I got most of the Others cleared away but I have no idea what to do with the little stubs sticking up. I'm sure I probably need to dig them up but it just sounds like more work and quite frankly I was already bored with this gardening thing anyway. Still, I decided to take down the Andre the Giant of Rose Bushes.
I was happily clipping away when it happened.
You know what happened right?
Have you ever had a thorn stuck in your finger?
I have.

My thumb is purple and red and sore.

It was then that I lost it.
I started kicking the rose bush and yelling something about sticking the thorns straight up it's root because I'm pretty sure that's the same as a human ass.

The rose bush is still, mostly, there.

And I am no longer allowed to bemoan the fact that our neighbors back away slowly, shielding their children from me as they go.