Brain dump (with pictures)

Not of my brain. The pictures, that is. That would be scary.

First off, the main thing on my mind this week (month): kindergarten. Schools #6, 7 and 8 from this post called this week to offer a spot to B this fall. We decided to tell school #6 "thanks but no thanks," mainly because we decided it's just too far off our normal home-preschool-work commute to be convenient or practical. I toured school #7 this afternoon, and was not terribly impressed. It's hard to explain why; there were no glaring problems like teachers spanking kids or padded cells or anything like that. I just wasn't wild about it. I'm touring school #8 in the morning and have high hopes. I've talked to the principal on the phone, and she seems very warm and friendly. We have to tell these two schools yes or no by Friday. My thought is to say yes to one of them, with the hope that our favorite (#2 in the aforementioned OCD post) will eventually come through with space for B. In the meantime, one of these two would certainly be better than our neighborhood school.

Now, on to the pictures. I know that's why you're really here anyway. Nobody outside my family cares about where B goes to kindergarten or how we go about deciding where he should go. I know that; I just torture you with the details because writing about it helps me sort out my thoughts. Sorry. Not really. Sorry I'm not sorry. Ha! Oh, I'm on a roll tonight, cracking myself up.

OK, on to the serious stuff: Z's hair. It is SO dry! And thin, and fine. Almost every morning, we get this:

Keep in mind, I took this picture at least an hour after she'd gotten up. It's not like I snatched her out of her crib & snapped a photo before her hair had a chance to calm down. It would have stayed this way all day if I hadn't spritzed it with water & combed it down. Or if her dad had taken her to preschool that day (he says hair care is women's work; I say it looks like her parents don't care when she goes to school like that). What to do? I've invested heavily in high-quality conditioners to no avail. At first we thought maybe it was due to malnutrition, but she's had the benefit of great nutrition & her hair's been cut enough times over the past almost-a-year (!) for me to know that argument doesn't hold water. I'm open to suggestions, other than shaving her head.

And now a seriously important topic: B's big-brother skills have shown massive improvement in the past two months. I think it was over the Christmas holidays, when the kids & I were "on vacation" for two weeks, that we really started to notice this. They play together a lot more than ever before, and B has begun to take great pride in his ability to both entertain and protect Z. He talks to her in the sweetest little voice, super high-pitched, like he imagines grown-ups are supposed to talk to babies. And he always talks in third person with her, as in "Z, watch B. Watch B fix the toy for Z." He also talks in his own sort of baby-talk to her: "Z, watch B. B fix toy." It's completely endearing and I'm so proud of him. Here they are on a day (at a moment) when they liked each other:

But don't get me wrong. There are still plenty of days when B feels more like this:

He's mercurial. He can go from the first picture to the second in a split-second. He did, in fact. But that second picture cracks me up. It's SUCH a B-face.

Speaking of my B's face...he's getting freckles! Just like his mommy. I hated mine with a passion when I was younger. I tried everything to get rid of them. I even laid out in the sun with lemon juice on my face in an effort to bleach them! My only thought on that now is this: how many of the wrinkles that I have now can I blame on the lemon juice? Behold B's freckles:

Last but not least, a totally random picture. I was painting my toenails a luscious hot pink one night, and when Z saw what I was doing, she demanded I paint hers too. Of course, then I had to offer to paint B's. He rejected the pink (understandably) and demanded blue. Luckily for him, I had two shades of blue for him to choose between. He chose the one that he thought was closest to the shade of blue in Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. We couldn't leave M out, so I painted his next. Here we are, all with painted toenails (the hairy toes are M's, in case you couldn't guess):

One last tidbit (no photo though): B is still talking about his new girlfriend Piper. There's now a picture of the two of them together on his bulletin board, per his request. And he told me yesterday that he's been taking all his preschool friends on imaginary trips to "Minnasoka" to visit Piper. They're all riding on his airplane, and he's driving. B's got a little crush...