Alison's Favorite Things: Springtime Edition

So I've been posting some heavy posts lately, and while topics about mental health and my kiddos growing up way too fast (sob) are certainly a big part of my life lately, so are some other things. Some might even call these things trivial or frivolous, but phooey on those people. I say the art of happiness is finding small treats for yourself on a regular basis.

I love Donna Meagle and Tom Haverford!

So here are some things I'm treating myself to/enjoying lately.

1.  The perfect jeans (for me). Y'all. You have NO IDEA how much I hate jeans shopping (probably the same amount that you hate jeans shopping.) I've bought so many pairs that "fit OK" only to end up hating them within a week. I'd obsessively read any article titled "Your Perfect Jeans" only to apathetically forget to shop for them. They didn't seem perfect, anyway.

The problem is the Gap. No, not the elusive Thigh Gap or the clothing store. I have a smaller waist-to-hip ratio than average, I guess. Pants that fit my hips often don't fit my waist. (Although aging is thickening my waist. Thanks, perimenopause!) Anybody know why even skirts with a zipper aren't as problematic? It probably has to do with rise over run or something. (I know that's a math thing, not a pants thing. I was trying to be funny. Be kind.)

Old Navy rockstar skinnies are good for me--although I had to size up to a number I'd never been before--as are any skinnies with stretch, so that trend has been nice. But I found the BEST everyday jeans that are more comfy than the Old Navy ones: Denizen from Levi's, found at Target.

Target! How do they manage to find the best things for us middle-aged moms at a great price point? It's a mystery.

I get the Curvy Skinny jeans. (I need these darker ones for dressier outfits; mine are more of a faded wash.) They don't stretch out over multiple wearings and the waistband never gaps. They have a Short for shrimps like me and a Long for you tall gals. I got the boot cut ones too, and they're a little more like a flare than a subtle boot cut, plus I need a slight heel with them, so I'm not gonna wear them as often.


But if you have the Gap (or even if you don't--they have a Modern Skinny fit for less curvy women) check them out. At 29.99, they can't be beaten!

2. Man, I'm gonna have to shorten my rave reviews or this post will take forever. Another thing I'm enjoying: tinted lip balm. When I see myself in pictures I always think my face is so "blah"...unless I have a little lip color on. And this winter I needed lip balm constantly, so it made sense to try a tinted one. I had one by NYX that was fine, but I wanted a smaller tube that was easier to apply without a mirror, so I went with the tried-and-true Burt's Bees and I love it.

I got the Lip Shimmer. It provides sheer yet noticeable color that stays put for a good amount of time and has a nice minty tingly feeling on my lips. It's definitely my everyday go-to now. I'm also going to try their gloss and maybe even (gasp!) their lipstick in the hopes that they will be more moisturizing than the ones I've tried.


3. Yoga. I've found my favorite exercise for life. No, yoga isn't just stretching with a nap at the end (though the relaxation benefits are significant for a stressball like me.) The research undeniably shows that a regular yoga practice is as effective as medication for treating anxiety and depression. (So is cardio, so I [reluctantly] alternate that into the mix.) Unlike other exercise, I actually look forward to doing yoga. I haven't done a class yet, but am planning to try one at our gym that meets mid-morning a couple of days a week. (I'm not doing anything at 5 a.m.)

I would have been intimidated to start with a class, so I'm glad I started where I did--free YouTube videos. I love Sara Beth of SaraBeth Yoga--her voice is soothing as is her background music (although she has some music-free videos as well--and she is excellent at explaining exactly what to do. I rarely even have to peek at the screen. Plus, she's not overly chatty like some of the yoga teachers on YouTube.

Even if I only have 15 minutes at the end of the day, I know I'll end up feeling more relaxed and refreshed after I do my yoga routine, and therefore I willingly do it...every day. I've never been able to say that about any other exercise routine.

Along those lines, I'm reading Yoga and the Pursuit of Happiness by Sam Chase, which I picked up on a whim at the library. Turns out it delves into why a yoga practice works, using both ancient Eastern wisdom and modern Western science, which is right up in my wheelhouse. I'm taking notes on it (which I do with nonfiction books I really want to learn from) and doing the "Inquiries" in my journal. I actually meditated for 15 minutes this morning--a new personal best!

Now it's time for me to stop going on about my favorites. What are you loving these days?

What Is the Opposite of "On Fleek?'

It's 10:09 p.m. and I'm writing my post for tomorrow because I'm going to be driving all day tomorrow and I want you to have a real post.*

You see what I do for you people? It's like I'm a slave to my art. **

No, seriously, thank you for reading and commenting here and on The Demon Facebook. It's been a lot of fun and (so far) the problem hasn't been finding something to say, it's shutting up. (My husband would probably agree. No, I know he would. Bless his heart.)

Today's post is on The Art of the Selfie. Specifically, that my selfie game is not strong, for in fact I have no selfie game. What can I say, I don't have quite the extra time that the under-twenty-five set does. And not as much interest in my own face.

Still, I persevered. I took these selfies last week, on the day of the OOTD.

Sidebar: I had on a cute outfit today, but I did not take a picture of it because as soon as I got home, I was too hot to wear the whole thing so I took off the hat, the denim jacket, and the ankle boots, leaving only the sleeveless polka-dot dress from this post. But trust me, it was cute until the dang Texas weather spoiled it.

Why did I take these close-up selfies? Well, I suppose I was on a roll, and I had tried something slightly (very slightly) different from my usual makeup routine. So I took these in the car, because there's no natural light in my bathroom.

Here goes. Brace yourself (I know I am).

I like this one the best because of the giant sunglasses covering half of my face.

Hellooo forehead wrinkles.

I cannot even with those eyebrows. Must get to the salon STAT.  At least I remembered to use lip color.

First of all, did you know that the selfie actually ends up the mirror image of what you saw in the (horrible) forward-facing camera? You did? How did I not get the memo on this? (When I mentioned my surprise, my almost-13-year-old reacted with mingled pity and scorn. "Old people!" you could almost hear her thinking.)

Well, how am I supposed to take a cute selfie when I am holding the camera in such a way to create a flattering picture on the other side of my face?

I erased quite a few unflattering side-eye pictures, is what I'm saying. Finally I came up with these three which I didn't hate. I quite like my smile in the last one, although my eyebrows are clearly out of control. [Shudder]

We are not even going to talk about my hair. Why did I think this was a good idea?

This has actually been good for me, to see myself in the cold hard light of day and the horrible forward-facing camera. For example, I didn't think I had wrinkles. I now know better.

Really, it's good for me to see these things. As Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living and all that jazz.

[Alison locks self into room with no natural light and curls into fetal position, whispering, "It's okay, you're still young..." over and over again.]

Anyway, when I took these pictures I was going to tell you about my makeup. I no longer think that matters. Fine, I'm wearing an e.l.f. $3.00 peach-colored blush which works as a sort of bronzer for me because I'm so pale. I think I used it as an eyeshadow, too. There. Beauty blogging done.

You know what is also great for your self-esteem? A teenage daughter.

C looked at these selfies on my phone (I didn't show them to her on purpose; I'm not that desperate for attention). Her eyebrows went up and she smiled in a weird way.

"What?" I said. "These are the best ones."

"I like the last one," she said. "The others..." She let the sentence trail off delicately so as not to trample more painfully upon my feelings, but the implication was clear: she would never post selfies like those.

Well, tough, kiddo. Also, you might want to be careful about raising your eyebrows like that. It causes wrinkles in about 25 years.


*"Real" is subject to interpretation and the author cannot be held accountable for failing to meet the reader's expectations. Kthanx.

**See the disclaimer above.

My Adventure with Manicures

Let it be a lesson to me not to promise a second part to a story right away. Here is Part I.  I actually wrote this on October 19, so there is an update at the end.

All of that is to give some background to what I'm about to say. Until about five years ago I had never visited a nail salon. No, not even for my wedding.

I'll pause to let the beauty gurus get their breath back.

I really regret not having my nails done for my wedding, though. I've been a nail biter/cuticle picker since way back, and my nails look horrible in the pictures, which wouldn't be so bad except that I inexplicably chose a close-up of our hands for a full page in the album. When I see that picture, I don't see the rings it's supposed to showcase; I see my short, not-pretty-at all nails. At least I had put on some clear polish, but it didn't help much.

So why didn't I get a manicure or pedicure before my wedding? It wasn't money (which WAS the reason I didn't go to the nail salon in the years since). In 1997 I had more discretionary income than I've ever had: I had my first full-time job, no car payment, and I was living at home because I was getting married in six months. I was supposed to pay my parents an absurdly low amount of rent but most of the time they forgot to collect it. I did buy my own wedding dress to compensate (big whoop.)

I guess I just didn't have "get my nails done" on my radar. Probably a few people I knew did, but no one I was really close to. No one seemed surprised that I wasn't getting my heels sanded and fingers and toes painted, let alone that I didn't have a professional hairdresser or makeup artist working on me.

And yet! I felt as beautiful as a Disney princess on the big day. My cousin worked magic on my hair, and an ecstatic glow seems to substitute just fine for a professional makeup job. So my advice to young brides is: don't believe the hype. You don't HAVE to spend a ton of money on beautifying yourself. Although if you don't have a cousin who is amazing at fixing hair--not just their own hair, but YOUR hair--then do spend the money to go to a salon. And definitely get your nails done while you're there, if you think you're going to have a picture taken of your hands.

The point of all this is to say that I finally treated myself to a manicure. At forty years old, I am tired of having nails bitten down to the quick and bleeding cuticles. I thought, "Hey, if my nails look pretty, I might not bite them!"

It only took me 25 years to think of this solution.

A month ago I got a gel manicure when I went in for a pedicure, and I loved the results. I forgot to take a picture, but they were pretty. I got a peachy-nude color, but you could tell I'd had a manicure. And I did not bite my nails or yank off a hangnail EVEN ONCE. So my nails grew and I can TAP on things and scratching is amazing.

The gel manicure was very durable, too. A regular manicure would have chipped in about 10 seconds on me, because I'm used to scraping things up with my nails, etc. But the gel held up for almost three weeks.


Here is what the second gel manicure looked like (as of Oct. 19).

I got a whitish polish with a shimmer in it, although the shimmer doesn't show here. I felt very on-trend. Are whitish nails on-trend? I've seen some cool ladies wearing it, so it doesn't matter what the magazines say. I still love the gel and the filing and everything that makes my nails pretty. But this nail tech wasn't as good as the last one. On several nails there was too much polish, even though she kept using her own nails to try to remove excess on the edge. Then when they dried there is no removing that polish. It looked okay in the shop, plus I'm the kind of person who says something's fine because I don't want to hurt their feelings. But outside I saw that the nails weren't perfect the way they were before. If it happens again I will tell the tech to redo them. I promise.

But they are at least okay (the picture isn't great) and my nails are still unbitten.

UPDATE: I am having the polish taken off today, and not getting another manicure right now. It would be too hard on my budget to maintain them even every couple of weeks. I hate the way the polish looks when it's growing out but I haven't had time to go to the salon till today, and the gel polish really won't budge with regular nail polish remover. The current look isn't pretty.

Ugh, what is wrong with my hand? Look at that swollen-looking forefinger and those wrinkles! Forget it, I'm not retaking the picture, it took too long to take with one hand in the first place.

I also just looked up the potential problems with gel manicures according to my Internet doctor, Web MD. Yikes. Besides the whole skin cancer risk from the lights, I don't want my nails to peel off in layers.

And before anyone suggests that I just do an at-home manicure, let me just say that when I do that, it looks like a two-year-old did it.

Sigh. It was nice while it lasted. Thank goodness for pedicures.

Tales of a Former Tomboy

I've never been particularly "girly" in my style. Even as a toddler, when even babies were dressed up for church in frilly dresses with petticoats underneath that made the skirts stick out horizontally, my mom didn't dress me as "frou-frou" as other little girls (that's her phrase). She's said that my legs were so thin, they looked pitiful underneath those voluminous skirts. Someday maybe I'll borrow her photo albums and get to scanning. I have a lot of Throwback Thursdays to catch up on.

This should give you the idea. Doesn't it make you itchy?

For much of my childhood, I was a tomboy who practically lived outside. This is very difficult for me to believe now, but it's true. I rode my bike every day after school, made endless mud pies, and climbed every tree at my grandparents' house (our trees didn't have branches close enough to the ground for me to climb, much to my disappointment.) I did all these things while wearing skirts and culottes because a) that was our school uniform and b) our church at that time believed that women should wear only skirts and dresses. So no truly tomboyish clothes for me.

This is EXACTLY what they looked like, even the navy blue color. I find them hideous.

I had no problems pursuing my interests, though. My parents never told me not to get dirty or not to climb things because I was wearing a skirt (hence the culottes.) I always did like pretty clothes for dressing up, though. I am a romantic through and through, and what could be prettier than the Disney princesses' ball gowns? You can imagine how much I loved Ariel and Belle compared to the earlier princesses: a spunky redhead and a bookworm who ALSO wear ball gowns? My kind of girls! But that's another post for another day.

Okay, this post has gotten way too long. I'll finish the story tomorrow.

I'd like to hear from y'all. Are you "girly" or not? Has your style changed since you grew up, or do you have basically the same preferences you had as a girl?

My Very First Picture of Myself in the Mirror

I was nervous this morning because I went to get my hair done by a new stylist. Turns out I didn't need to worry. I'm having a good hair day. (Now if only I can approximately recreate the style when I fix my hair!)

Pasty White Chicks of the World Unite!

Recently I read a post in which Jo-Lynne of "Musings of a Housewife" had the opportunity to consult a makeup artist. He used a shade of powder called "China Doll" which he said he'd wanted to call "Pasty White Chick" but the company wouldn't let him. I and several other commenters said we'd totally buy a makeup called "Pasty White Chick" because--well, that's what we are. It would take all the guesswork out of the decision.

I've always been fair-skinned but when I was a child, I was outdoors so much that I did turn a pretty, light golden color in the summer. I think the last tan I had was when I was ten years old. After that my sedentary, indoor-loving personality took over and I didn't spend much time outside. As a teenager, I could never stand to "lay out" and tan. First of all, we didn't have a pool, so I couldn't cool off when I got too hot lying in the broiling Texas sun on our driveway. Second, I did get hot. Very hot. And bored. I didn't even have a Walkman to listen to as I lay there baking. (Note to anyone under thirty: Walkmans were radios and/or tape players with headphones. That was what we had before iPods. And now I have just admitted to being old enough to remember having no portable music at all. Oh, the shame.)

Third and most important, it was useless for me to lay out because I don't tan. I don't. I burn, peel, and then maybe, if I have done enough damage to the subcutaneous layer of my skin, there might be a tan under there--a very light, barely noticeable tan. But only if the burn was really painful and destined to increase my risk of melanoma years later.

I don't actually know what subcutaneous means or if I used it correctly in that sentence, but I do know what melanoma means. And that pasty white people are at a greater risk for it than people with more melanin in their skin. Fortunately I decided at a young age that being tan wasn't worth painful sunburns and yucky peeling. I was wise beyond my years, people. I didn't even try tanning beds when they became popular. I have reddish-brown hair, and I wondered if I would look all reddish-brown if I tanned my face. Plus I heard the story of the girl who liquefied her internal organs by tanning too much, and it doesn't matter if the story is true or not because it kept me out of the tanning bed. I did try self-tanners back in the day when they were...not as good as they are today and I was as orange as a traffic cone for a few days. Not a good look for me. Or anyone, really.

So I decided to embrace my whiteness. It's been around fifteen years since I tried to change the color of my skin much. I did discover the Aveeno lotion with a hint of color and it does even out the skin tone on my legs (white legs are one thing; white blue-veined legs are another). And if I were going on a vacation in which I would appear in pictures wearing a bathing suit (gack!) I'd probably try a Mystic tan. But other than that--it is what it is. I have my paternal grandmother's skin, and the plus side of protecting your skin is that you look younger when you're in your eighties. So as you can imagine, I'm looking forward to that decade of my life.

Other women I know don't feel the same way at all. Two acquaintances recently told me that they just can't stand to go bare-legged unless they've tanned. Their "pale" is probably as dark as I'd ever get, so I asked them if they ever worried about the effects of tanning and both of them said they'd rather be tan and wrinkly. (Tactfully, I didn't bring up skin cancer.) I've also had people tell me, "I think other people can look good without a tan. You look fine pale! But I need a tan." I don't know if they're just being nice or if they have something like body dysmorphic disorder in which they think everyone else looks fine but they are just not pretty when they're white.

What about y'all? Do you tan easily, with or without trying? Do you wear sunscreen? Do you already proudly embrace your identity as a Pasty White Chick?

Operation Slim Down

So I'm making an effort to lose a few pounds. News flash: it's NOT ALL THAT FUN. But then, neither is not fitting into my pants. It really wasn't an option.

I've never had to diet before. I mean, sure, I've thought it would be nice to drop a couple of pounds, and I'd decide to do it by eating less and not drinking Cokes, and then the weekend would come and I'd eat my weight in Mexican food and chocolate, and I'd forget about getting smaller because (another news flash) FOOD TASTES GOOD. Fortunately for my undisciplined self, my metabolism would keep me about the same size I've been since high school. (Please do not throw things. I know I am lucky.)

And yes, I know dieting doesn't really work. I'm not on anybody's specific diet, but I know what to do. Eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Eat less sugar, refined carbs, and meat. And the portion sizes. Dear God, the portion sizes. How I miss the days when I could eat a slab of steak that covered my plate, plus a baked potato with cheese and a salad and several pieces of bread spread with butter. My beloved late FIL used to say he'd never seen a little gal eat so much. (In my defense, he always saw me eat when we were visiting Louisiana, and I adore Cajun food, so I ate more there than usual.)

So now I am plugging what I eat every day into sparkpeople.com, which says I need to aim for 1100--1300 calories per day. When I started last week, I was hungry. I mean, go-to-bed-hungry, think-about-food-as-I go-to-sleep, wake-up-starving hungry. (Hunger does help the cardboard cereal taste better.) I hadn't really thought I was eating that much more than recommended, but I must have been wrong. I think the problem is that I graze off the kids' leavings--eat a handful of goldfish crackers, polish off the remaining few bites of mac & cheese. It adds up. Plus, I tend to think of unhealthy food as a reward. I ate my veggies--now I want dessert! It's the weekend and the kids are still alive--ice cream for everybody!

Here's something I found yesterday--a link to a basal metabolism calculator. It tells you how many calories you'd burn if you did nothing but lie around in bed all day (where do I sign up for that gig?) That gives you an idea of how many calories you need to eat once you factor in your level of activity. Mine was 1330--hey! Since I'm only eating 1200 a day, plus I am WAY more active than lying down all day, SURELY I will conquer the battle of the bulge in this brave new world of my thirties.

In fact, I will probably be forced to eat a milkshake every now and then to keep you all from being afraid that I have anorexia. I'll do it for my readers, so that you don't worry about me. You're welcome.

A Whiter Shade of Pale

It’s raining right now, which makes me sleepy, but so far I have successfully resisted going to sleep (I really don’t NEED a nap, but to me naps are like chocolate—I hate to turn down the opportunity.) Instead, I wanted to talk about what I should do with my skin.

First, I plan on keeping my skin. It’s all I’ve got to hold myself together (thank you! I’ll be here all week!) I have come to accept that I have white skin and that’s all there is to it. When I choose foundation, I’m either the palest or the next-palest shade. Most of the time it doesn’t bother me and I wear shorts or skirts with my white legs showing unashamedly (although sometimes when I’m dressing up I use Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs, which gives me just a hint of color without making my legs noticeably darker than the rest of my skin.)

I won’t get a real tan, because I don’t tan unless I burn first, and that’s a recipe for skin cancer. I’m SO glad I didn’t bake in the sun or tanning beds as a teenager, and really I don’t know why I accidentally did the sensible thing and stayed pale. I did try the sunless tanners, though, and whooo—I was a pretty tangerine color after the first few tries.

I hear sunless tanners have gotten better, and I’m wondering if I need to go get one. Like, tonight, because a friend invited us to her pool tomorrow and people, my thighs could probably blind somebody. And that would not be good guest behavior, I think.

Still, I hesitate because I am lazy. I hate exfoliating and rubbing all the lotion in evenly and wondering where to stop on my neckline and most of all I hate the smell. Don’t tell me to try Jergens Natural Glow, either. I am happy it works for other people, but it didn’t work for me—at least not the Light color. I couldn’t tell any difference, after I rubbed it in every stinking night. I put in the effort and it failed me. (Did I mention I am lazy? Yes, I consider rubbing lotion into my legs making an effort.) I would try it again with the Medium shade but the smell was pretty self-tanner-y. At some point I was planning to try another brand but this swimming day is too soon to see any results from that.

You know what, we are only going to be in the water for an hour or so. I think they will just have to see me in all my pearly glory.

Or I could hope it just keeps raining.

The Twin Curses of Taxes and Cellulite

And a happy tax day to you! Doesn’t it make you feel all warm inside to think of all that money being drained out of your bank account (or being withheld from your paycheck) into the vast coffers of the U.S. Treasury? Yeah, I thought so. It’s enough to make me want to go back to the pioneer days, when there was no income tax. Sure, nobody built roads for you or—what else does our government do that actually benefits us? I forget.

But since this is not a political blog, I’ll just stop right there and go on, in my erratic way, to Something Completely Different*. I got the swimsuit I’ve been dreading shopping for, and it’s not that bad. You can see it here, but if you think that when you click on that link, you’re going to see a picture of me modeling it for you, you’re sadly mistaken, my friend.

It looks okay on me, which is the best a 30-something mom like me can hope for. It holds everything in and isn’t too revealing, which is saying something since I bought it from Victoria’s Secret. Plus, I got it on sale. I paid $41 shipped, which sounds like a lot, but as you may already know, is in the middle of the price range, and I plan to use it until it is in rags so the next time I have to buy a swimsuit, I will be 80 years old and I can just wear a muu-muu at the pool and be done with it. Speaking of going back to pioneer days, then we could wear those full-length bathing costumes with stockings and no one could see our cellulite! Wouldn’t that be great? I don’t know who invented modern swimsuits, but I can tell you it wasn’t a woman over 30.

Anyway, I'm a little discouraged that with all the exercise I get (1 hour a day, 3-5 times a week), my body has changed very little. I don't have a problem with my size, but when I started, I expected that if I worked out that often, I'd look like the cover of Shape magazine. Apparently I love food too much to lose weight unless I starve myself, and that's not gonna happen. At least I don't actually need to lose weight (please don't throw things) and my body is healthy and reasonably strong. Plus I'm addicted to the exercise now--or is it just that I'm addicted to spending an hour kid-free, listening to my iPod and reading celebrity gossip? Take a guess!

*If you got the Monty Python reference, I love you.

Odd Mom Out

Today was gymnastics class for Miss Pink. I like that she likes gymnastics, but I don't really like taking her to gymnastics.

It's fine when the mom of her best friend from school is there. This mom and I have become friends (which is why we chose this gym) and she has a three-year-old boy who can play with Mr. Blue.

Because he needs someone to play with. Otherwise, he's doing things like crawling under the bleachers and spilling water on innocent spectators. I try to keep him occupied, but if you know any two-year-old boys, you know it ain't always easy.

I'm envious of the parents of older kids who can sit there pretending to look at their child from time to time, but in actuality they're reading or listening to their iPods. If I did either one of those things, I'd be so tuned out that Mr. B would probably find a way to set the place on fire.

When the friend-mom isn't there, though, I not only have to deal with Mr. B, but in between I have to listen to the chit-chat of the other moms. There's a whole group of them who live in the friend-mom's neighborhood, and I just don't fit in with them, I think. It's weird because we have some things in common: we're all stay-at-home middle-class moms in their thirties. But, really, the similarity ends there.

Part of it, I guess, is that they have more disposable income than I do. (Hard not to assume that when they carry Coach bags half the size of their bodies.) They're manicured and pedicured and coiffed and accessorized within an inch of their lives and you just know they were the popular girls in high school.

But I'm not jealous. Really--I swear. It's just that I find it hard to have an hour-long conversation about coloring one's hair. Seeing as how I've never colored mine, and anyway, what is there to talk about for that long about the subject?

Oh, these ladies could. And they did.

I think I briefly passed out from the shock when the most heavily-made-up of them airily announced that she'd just paid $200 for the last application of blonde highlights to her 16-year-old daughter's hair.

I awoke long enough to hear her say, "Oh, when you have dirty-blonde or brown hair, you really have to put in highlights."

And then I passed out again.

Because, really? You have to? Or what happens? The fashion police come to arrest you to do hard time in the House of Couture?

I guess I'd better start anticipating that knock on my door, then. Because even if I did have $200 extra dollars, I don't want to spend it on highlights for myself. And it will be a cold day in Hades before I spend that on Miss Pink's hair. Sixteen-year-olds are already naturally youthful and fresh and pretty. Why would I want my daughter to feel that she isn't pretty enough without expensive beauty procedures? We can put that money in a college fund!

Please understand: I don't have anything against coloring your hair (or your child's), or even paying lots of money for it. It's your money; spend it however you want (and I would NEVER color my hair at home. When I start feeling old, I'll find a way to afford professional help.) But don't go around bragging about it unless you want people like me to roll their eyes. (Not that they noticed. That's my real problem: that, being Popular Girls, they only pay attention to each other.)

Oh, and another thing: they've got their daughters in gymnastics because they're already in cheerleading. Gymnastics is just to make sure they're good enough to become varsity cheerleaders someday.

Did I mention their daughters are around eight years old? And that if Miss P wants to be a cheerleader, I will wear sackcloth and ashes, so deep will be my grief? "WHO IS THIS GIRL AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE CHILD WHO SHARES MY GENETIC MATERIAL?" I will moan, if that day ever comes.

Today I got there before the group and sat on the end of the bleachers. The Popular Moms arrived one by one and found each other. At one point we said hi. They didn't ask me to sit by them. I corralled Mr. Blue and, when he found two older kids who would play ball with him, I watched the teenage girls climbing ropes up to the ceiling. I was amazed at their strength and agility, the way the muscles shimmered in their legs, and happy to see that for that moment, at least, none of them was trying to think of ways to be more popular, and as far as I could tell, none of them had highlights in their hair.

5 Going On 15

Miss Pink has decided she wants to be just like her mommy. This is not entirely new, but her desire to look exactly like me at all times is. It’s sweet of her, and I will wax nostalgic about it someday when she scorns my mildest fashion suggestions, but it can pose problems when we’re getting dressed. For one thing, she has a lot more pink clothes than I do. Today I had to wear a green T-shirt because that was the theme of today’s clothing. She was sad that I didn’t have green pants like hers. I was not sad about that. Thank goodness she can be persuaded that certain colors go together even if they don’t exactly match. (Thank you, Clinton and Stacy.)

It's part of wanting to be grown up. I get that. To her it seems like grown-ups have all the fun. She doesn't know there are days I'd trade places with her in a heartbeat, if it weren't for having to grow up all over again.

She even wants to shave her legs like Mommy. I don’t give her an actual razor. It’s a bladeless plastic razor that came with some depilatory foam. She lathers up her tiny leg and goes to town scraping the foam off. It cracks me up, thinking that someday this is going to be a chore she hates and now she thinks it is just the coolest thing.

She also talks like a teenager sometimes. (This is one of the things that surprised me most about preschool-age girls: I thought all the flouncing and eye-rolling and sarcasm came later. But no.) Her little brother (like most two-year-olds) has a favorite saying: “My do it!” He will back up this assertion with temper tantrums if he doesn’t get to do whatever it is (like, say, pour his own milk). This weekend Miss P said with world-weary scorn, “He says ‘My do it’ for everything.” Like, whatever.

Watching her grow up and getting to fix her hair just like Mommy's every day is one of the best things about my life.

Freakish Eyebrows

Yesterday, I finally bowed to the inevitable and performed eyebrow maintenance on myself. Let the torture begin! But it was necessary. I like people to see my eyes, after all, and if I don’t pluck my eyebrows every couple of weeks, they don’t resemble human eyebrows so much as two dark muppets clinging to my forehead. Sort of like this.

You think I’m exaggerating. But that could be me, in that picture. Except that my hair only looks like that when I first wake up, and my skin is not the color and texture of old leather, and, you know, the thing about NOT BEING AN OLD MAN. But other than that, the resemblance is eerie. So you see, desperate measures are called for.

I don’t mind the pain of plucking so much; I’m used to it. It’s all the decisions involved that get to me. Easy decision: all the hairs between the eyes, on the bridge of the nose. No unibrow. But what about these poking up here, here, and here? If I pluck them all out, will I have a bald spot there? I find hairs that were supposed to belong to the eyebrows an inch away from their friends, growing alone on my temples—that is weird. And what about the arch? Underneath the brow is, to me, the most painful part to pluck, yet it must be done.

Why don’t I go to a professional? Well, I did, for a while. She has waxed my brows quite a few times, and she knows I don’t want a super-thin eyebrow. That would send me into shock when I looked in the mirror; you’d find me clutching my face, wailing, “WHO IS THIS WOMAN?” But the last time I went to her, when she was done, I couldn’t tell any difference. “What about these growing right above the normal brow line?” I asked. “Most people don’t want me to touch the top of the brows,” she said. I had her get what I was talking about, but for $20 my eyebrows didn’t look any better than the plucking and trimming I can do for myself.

I hear that the "fuller brow" look is in right now. Maybe that means I can wait two extra days before deforesting the top half of my face.