For babies and toddlers freakish about brushing their hair, start off with using a horse face brush. The bristles are super-soft on her head, hair and scalp, and they’re super cheap. Plus, Spice loves to brush her soft toys “hair” in pretend-play.

It’s not at all for tangles, but we keep those down with California Baby’s spray detangler once in a while and just cut the really tough tangles out. I know that may seem a little crazy to the more fashionista parents out there, but my view is that she’s 20 months and I would rather have her be happy with a wild toddler ‘do, than have immaculate locks and tears and bathroom battles every day.

parenting babies toddlers grooming tips hair tangles kids brush

love this sign. :-)

Most toddlers are early risers and Spice is no exception. This morning, she woke me up before dawn, wanting to play.

The spouse-unit and I have an arrangement that he takes her weekday mornings, and I get her on the weekends. This works out for both of us since he gets to spend more time with her on the days where he’s in the office until dinner time and I get to sleep in a little. Likewise on the weekends, when he can sleep in until noon, and Spice and I can go run errands or visit my mother.

But Mom’s out of town this weekend and we’re supposed to go to the farmers’ market before noon, so I’m spinning my wheels about what to do this morning. Hmm. Maybe bake something. Or maybe pancakes.

I know, I know - I’m a little late to the game, but the Notes To Netflix Pool is sheer genius. :-)

netflix notes creative artsy funny

I love the rain. How tragic for a California girl to get such few days of rain each year. Sometimes, I think I should just pack up and move to somewhere like Portland or Seattle, where everything is lush and green all year round. I guess I’d miss the heat after a while though; I really love L.A.’s baking summers.

Last night I had yet another mini-breakdown. And again this morning. And again this afternoon.

Each time, I stumble along through this cycle of frustration, anger, blind rage, depression then sheer exhaustion. So fast that by the time I’m at work, or doing stuff at home, I don’t even remember what set it off because there are just too many things that snowballed together to make the whole thing happen. But the general idea is that I’m overwhelmed with juggling home, work, spouse & child: the classic working-mother conundrum.

I’ve considered backing off work, but the sad fact is that I just can’t do it. We have our own business, of sorts, and there just isn’t anyone available to fill the strange little hole that is my job. The spouse-unit and I have talked about hiring a friend as a housekeeper to help get the place organized, be home to get estimates from contractors, and other general household duties, but she’s been flakier than a Pillsbury pie crust. I’m down to scheduling things into the calendar like “6-7pm: Evening walk” and, worse still, a daily repeating task of “Make coffee, sit and breathe for 5 min.” Sadly, the only days I get to sit over my morning coffee for five minutes are the days where I remember to even check my calendar and to-do list before running out of the house, I kid you not.

And the last time we went to our marriage counselor for our quarterly “tune-up”, our topic of business for the session was how get through the next six months of work insanity and still be married at the end of it. Ironically, the best suggestion was to be sure and schedule in time for us to do “couple time” and “family things”.

Grr, and double-grr.

I wish I had answers. I wish YOU had answers for me. :-) In the meantime, I’m scheduling me-time for catching up on blog reading & writing, while the spouse-unit kills off brain cells blows away enemies in Call of Duty 2. Then we’ll each crawl into bed, wake up tomorrow and do it all over again: the fights and crying and work and playing with Spice and cleaning up cat puke and making cookies and doing dishes and picking cat hair off my black clothes and kicking the washer and… you get the idea… all over again.

Suckh is life, no? ;-)

life parenting working mom marriage kids gtd

as the-oven-that-betrayed-me-yesterday is boldly claiming, tomorrow is another day.

This is how I feel today.