Haircuts

Hey.  Looks like I'm the only one posting to this blog, too.  Heidi has lots more followers on her blog than I do, and this is a non-mechanical blog, so this post will be about how we do our hair in the McMillan household.  I do it.  I cut the kids hair, Heidi's hair, and my own hair.  I give them the cuts I want.  Sometimes they get what they want.  Heidi had been talking for a few weeks about how she wanted to go to [a nice salon], like it was a message of, This is how I want to spend my time and money.  I said sure.  "Knock yourself out.  Get a cut and color."  I'm glad that she wants to do her hair nice.  Well, a couple of weeks go by and no salon visit.  Then she asks me to cut her hair.

"Okay, how do you want me to do it?"

"Oh, whatever you want."  I cut off three or four inches, gave her some layers, and it looked nice.  This is her picture that's going on the swim team's profile.  You can't tell much about her haircut but I thought the composition and lighting were good.  It was the 50 1.8.  

I did Scott's hair today.  He likes it long and his hair is quite nice.  I gave him a cut like the Biebs.  Justin Beiber, when he was younger and not an idiot.  Scott's hair looked a lot better in real life but we had to do the photo anyway.  I told him that he had the hair I never could achieve.  I always wanted to look like John Stamos.  I even tried growing out my hair but whacked it a couple of weeks ago because I was so frustrated at work.  My haircut was a benign way of venting some steam.

I also cut Blake's hair.  He likes getting product put in it.  We didn't do a photo, though.  Blake has mostly recovered from the arrival of Parker.  We still struggle to understand what Blake's grunts mean.  I am trying to teach the kids to communicate with their words.  Specifically, I am teaching them to ask with "will you..." questions instead of statements that are not questions or requests but that imply the action of someone else, usually me.  Like this:  "I'm thirsty."

I hear that and think, "Yeah, you should get a drink."  But they're asking me for a drink.  So I say, in Spanish, "Will you get me a drink?"  I make them repeat it in Spanish.  Then I get them a drink.   I want them to be able to voice their emotions or concerns without hinting or expecting the listener to read their mind.  Just say it.   Also, I'm teaching them to give me yes or no answers when I ask them a yes or no question.  Why is that so hard for people?  It's not.  "Are you done eating?"  I always ask then when they've left their plate on the table and they're horsing around.  All I'm looking for is, "Yes, I'm done," and then I tell them to put their plate in the sink.  If it's no, I ask them to sit back down and keep eating.  But they give me these off-the-wall answers like, "Tyler's gonna shoot me with the nerf gun."

I'm pleased when I hear Scott repeat things I say.  Like he'll ask a question and get a vague answer.  So he comes back with, "So is that a yes or no?"  Nice.  I am not pleased when I have to ask the kids three or five times to do stuff.  Today I bribed them with my choir treat.  Heidi had a meeting after church and for choir I got a chocolate coated marshmallow thing.  Tyler brought the diaper bag out to the car, so I gave him a portion.  Kira was crying because she didn't get any treat.  I told her she just had to do something nice.

We made lentils for lunch.  My best batch yet.  Kira and Scott were peeling the potatoes and carrots and then Scott chopped them up.  Then Blake threw in the spices and opened the cans.  Tyler was vacuuming the carpet.  I felt successful.  Usually when the kids "help" me it takes longer.  But today they actually saved me time.  There is a video on the mormon channel about a single mom of three or four kids and their thing is to spend time together cooking.  I want the kids to enjoy cooking because it has brought me a lot of satisfaction and hopefully it'll become a part of their lives.

Okay, that's all.