First(real) haircut

Well, here I sit on a Sunday afternoon, completely frustrated. We just had an epic struggle with Maura to get her to take a nap. It's amazing to me--usually this child loves naps. In fact, yesterday she ran to her crib and asked to be put inside to go nite-nite. On Sunday, though, something happens to her and she becomes this creature who never wants to go to bed. I knew she was exhausted, so I put her down right after lunch, thinking she'd drift right off to dreamland. I laid down for a nap as well, leaving Brent with the moniter. Well, about an hour later I hear her clearly outside my door saying, "poo-poo in the potty." Aparently she's developed a new nap avoidance strategy called, Feigning Potty Training. She's never gone to sleep and Brent has tried rocking her two different times. I then rock her until I think I'm going to throw out my back and she's drowsy and seemingly sleepy! Wrong again! It took her almost three hours to finally fall asleep, and I'm going to have to wake her up in about 45 minutes so we can go to homechurch. What a frustrating waste of an afternoon!!

Anyway, I wanted to post some pictures of Maura when she had her first real haircut. When I say real, I mean that I have trimmed a few wild hairs on occasion, but never really snipped off any substantial hair. I finally got truly sick of seeing her hair so scraggly and decided to take action. We knew that she was going to throw a fit regardless of who cut her hair, so we opted for a haircut at home rather than one in a salon to minimize embarrassing outbursts and also to avoid having to pay for the same crummy results! It's one of those moments that I would have liked to have had more pictures of, but it took every bit of the both of us just to get it done!

Here she is just prior to the haircut, not knowing what is to come. As you can see, those bangs are very much in her eyes and were starting to frustrate her.

Preparing the hair. Get ready for the outburst--she was quiet and calm until the second she saw the scissors come out. Then she clung on to Brent like I was trying to cut off her nose and said, "All done, all done, all done," over and over again! I ended up cutting almost an inch from the back to make it all look even with the front. I saved all those baby locks in a little baggie. It makes me so sad to see all that baby hair come off.

The after picture. I wish it was more impressive. I didn't think to get a picture of the back because I was so frazzled after the experience! She looks a little frazzled too, but she recovered pretty quickly. She looks much better!!

The following pictures are from Maura's friend Lily's party. She turned 2 on Feb 9 and we celebrated with her on the day before her birthday. She had a puppy dog party, which was really cute. I think it was the first time that Maura really GOT birthdays. Now, all she can talk about is blowing out the candles!

Lily with her pupcake. What you can't see is Maura hanging over the other edge of the tray to watch the candles!! She was so facinated. Now, when we ask her how old she'll be on her birthday, she says, "two candles."

What a cute little puppy birthday girl! I loved the ears!

We made ear headband for all the kids and Maura suprisingly left hers on. She kept checking out the food table--I guess she was starving. When I set her down with a plate she ate for a half an hour straight!

Mommy with her cute puppy dog.

Sydney, our next door neighbor. She's seven months old and starting to think about crawling. She can military crawl anywhere, so I guess she figures, why bother traditional crawling!

Emily, Sydney's big sister.

Sarah and Wesley, the dog. We thought it was apropriate that he join the puppy party.

Liam, the only boy in the group. He was in perpetual motion, so this was the best picture I got.

The whole gang! They had so much fun playing at the puppy party! We're looking forward to our own party in just a few weeks.