It’s been almost three months since our trip to Disney World, but I’m just now getting to a point where I can sit down and sift through all of our photos, and think about the lessons learned from the whole experience. All told, we had a great time, and it was something that was definitely special to Nora. She talks about it often, and mentions going back—which we’ll do, but probably not for at least a couple of years.
I’ve been thinking for a while about how to tackle these posts, the sharing of photos, etc. And I figured out a few different categories, or topics, that I want to focus on and I think it’ll make all of this a little easier to digest, and hopefully a little more informational than the typical “vacation recap” posts.
So, where to start? How about with the planning?
We weren’t originally planning to go to Disney until our youngest child was 3-4 years old. But last year, Nora really started to get into the Disney magic—in large part due to Frozen. She LOVES all of the princesses, LOVES Anna and Elsa. And I kept hearing from some parents and teachers that this magic can be short-lived. Like many other parts of a child’s development, it’s a phase. They’re into it, then they’re not anymore. And if I’m being honest, Nora is ALREADY not into them as much as she used to be. She still really likes them and it’s not that I don’t think she would have enjoyed herself if she was a bit older, but Michael and I started to talk about it and we decided we really wanted to embrace the stage she was in and take her at age 4. Because she still BELIEVES and it’s all wonderful. We ended up running into some unexpected challenges with fears, but it doesn’t change my position about taking her—it was our expectations that needed to be adjusted and managed.
Vivienne’s age made us nervous; don’t get me wrong. At the time of our trip, she was going to be 15 months old and we were definitely sweating a bit about that. And now that we’re on the other side of it, I’ll say that it wasn’t easy. There were challenging parts with Vivienne because she was old enough to want to walk around by herself, but too young to walk in any particular direction, hold our hands for an extended period of time, and generally just reason with. She spent A LOT of time in the stroller. A LOT, A LOT. And thankfully, she was mostly cool about that. There was a lot for her to look at. But age of your children at the time of your trip is obviously a huge consideration. We took a risk and it worked out, but I honestly don’t know if it would have if she had been ANY older than 15 months. The moment we got home, it seemed like her sense of independence suddenly exploded even more and I could not imagine trying to confine her to a stroller for such extended periods of time right now. It stresses me out just to think about it.
Once we decided we were going to do this whole Disney World thing, I turned to experts—friends who have been to Disney many, many times. We knew we wanted to do a trip in the fall (October or November) and my friend, Kim, informed me that we’d likely be there during Disney’s “free dining” promotion, which was a nice added perk. However, at the time we booked—which turned out to be late April 2014 for a November 2014 trip—the free dining promo had not yet been released/announced. Kim advised me to book it anyway, and that we could call on the day the dining promo was announced to have them update our reservation with the promotional discount.
Sure enough, in early May, Disney announced the free dining promotion for the fall, and I was able to call on that same day and update the reservation. It knocked just about $1,000 off of our original reservation costs, which is not insignificant. I plan to dedicate a whole post to dining details, so if you’re curious to know more about this whole thing, stay tuned for that soon. Disney also offers other types of promotions throughout the year, and they are generally the same year after year, so definitely look into it if you’re in the midst of your own planning. You can still book your trip ASAP, but just have the reservation adjusted as soon as the promotion is officially released.
So, we knew free dining was likely coming from the beginning of the planning process, but one of the more difficult decisions was where to stay. From what I’ve read and been told, I don’t think you can REALLY go wrong with any of the Disney resorts. But we liked the look and feel of the moderate resorts (they have value, moderate, and deluxe) over the value resorts, and we couldn’t justify the cost of the deluxe resorts for this trip. When it comes to hotels, we’ve never been tremendously picky—we like a clean, comfortable place to sleep, and that’s about all we ask for.
On this trip, we also wanted to make sure that transportation to the parks was convenient—which thanks to the Disney buses, it is, pretty much wherever you stay—and that the hotel had a decent pool. We were hopeful that even though the weather could go either way in November (swimming versus non-swimming temps), we might have a chance to spend a day or two “resting” away from the parks, enjoying the pool and hotel grounds. Kim recommended Coronado Springs, so after checking it out, we went for it.
The other thing to consider was length of stay. I knew that with small children, running a go-go-go type of vacation could be dangerous to all of our mental sanities. We decided that we’d go for a week—Sunday to Sunday due to work travel I had planned leading up to our vacation—but that we’d plan to only spend four days in the parks. On the “off” days, we’d stay by the pool, nap in the hotel, visit Downtown Disney, etc. You know, relax.
So at first, we planned to only buy 4-day park passes. I mentioned this plan to Kim and she gently suggested that we consider getting 6-day passes instead. The cost difference was pretty negligible all things considered—it was only $63 more TOTAL for all of us to get 6-day park passes instead of 4-day park passes. Kim’s reasoning was that this would give us the most flexibility. If there was a park we wanted to revisit, or if there was one that we wanted to go and spend just a few hours at on one of our “off” days, we would have the option. We got the regular (non-hopper) passes because we figured that it’s not that easy to “hop” parks, and we were unlikely to go through all of that effort with two small kids in tow. Once we were in a park for the day, we were okay sticking to that same park, so there was no reason for us to pay extra to hop.
This whole 4-day vs. 6-day park passes thing was probably the best advice that Kim gave me, because I don’t know what we would have done if we didn’t have those two extra days of passes. Long story short—more to come on this later–we had pretty dreadful weather (IT WAS COLD!! Really cold), so spending a day or two hanging out by the pool was not in the cards for us. We ended up going to the parks every.single.day (with the exception of our arrival and departure days) because honestly, what else were we going to do at Disney if not the pool?
Once we were booked, Disney made it pretty easy to keep track of all of the “next steps.” They sent a personalized booklet with a customized magnet for our fridge with all of the important dates on it—like when to start booking dining reservations, when to book FastPasses, when the final payment was due, etc.
That was another nice thing—you don’t have to pay for it all at once if you can’t or don’t want to! Book your vacation, put down a deposit (can be as little as a few hundred dollars) and then periodically sign into your My Disney Experience account and make payments toward the balance when you can. No minimum payments, no interest. Just pay as you can and/or want to. Also, it’s all 100% refundable up until 45 days before your trip, so if you’re planning really far out and then end up needing to cancel your trip for some reason, you’re not out any money (at least from Disney. Airfare is obviously a different story). You have to have the trip paid off in full with Disney at the 45-day mark, too.
Making dining (at 180 days out) and FastPass+ reservations (at 60 days out) was honestly kind of stressful for me, but I’ll get more into that in later posts.
We also opted to pay for the Memory Maker package. I think it was around $100. With it, you get unlimited photos from Disney photographers in the parks. Any time there is a photographer anywhere, you can have your photo taken and then you’ll get to download all of the digital files. We had our photos taken randomly in the parks, at character meet-and-greets, at some of the restaurants, etc. and it was worthwhile to have the package, we thought. The Memory Maker even includes the photos that are sometimes taken of you while you’re on some of the rides.
Picking the specific dates for our trip—we traveled November 16-23, as I mentioned, Sunday to Sunday—was actually mostly beyond our control. We had a lot of family plans and things going on in October, I had work travel at both the end of October and the second week of November, there was Halloween in there (which we wanted to be home for). So it pretty much left us with only the week before Thanksgiving as an option. However, if you have more flexibility in your dates, another thing you might want to consider is consulting a reliable Disney crowd calendar. The predicted crowds for our dates were low, which was nice. Once on our trips and in the parks, they still seemed relatively crowded to us, but we also don’t have much to compare it to. *shrug* It’s Disney. Crowds are part of the experience.
We ended up booking flights later in May, so less than a month after booking our trip, and about six months out from our travel dates. We did it early because we have limited direct flights to Orlando available to us from where we live, and we wanted to take advantage of them. Some of them were already sold out by the time we booked!
So, budget. I know a lot of people want to know about budget. A Disney vacation can range tremendously in price based on the resort level, length of stay, dining choices, spending money at the parks, etc. I debated about whether to share a cost breakdown here, since I don’t want it to come off the wrong way. But I hope that by breaking down the expenses we incurred on our vacation, it can help others in knowing what to expect to spend for a similar trip. Once we were on property, we paid for EVERYTHING with our Magic Bands (the bracelets Disney sends you that serve as your hotel room key, park passes, FastPasses, method of payment, etc.). On the day we checked out from our hotel, we received an email summary of every purchase we made, and the total amount spent (the balance was charged to our credit card, which they had on file). It made it easy to add up out-of-pocket expenses during the trip, which was interesting, since that’s not something we typically add up over the course of our vacations!
Anyway, here we go. Cost breakdown for a trip to Disney from New York in November 2014, staying at a moderate resort (Coronado Springs), 7 days and 7 nights total, 6 days spent in the parks. Two adults, one child (age 4), and one infant (whose trip was free due to her age):
$2,623 – Resort, park passes, Memory Maker, dining plan (which was free due to a fall Disney promotion)
$873 – Roundtrip airfare
$509 – Out-of-pocket expenses during the trip (lunch on first day, tips/gratuity for all table service meals (six of them), alcoholic drinks, souvenirs, games, etc.)
= $4,005 TOTAL
Is Disney the most economical vacation you can take? No. But I have to say—I thought that $4,000 was not bad for a 7-day Disney trip for a family of four. Granted, Vivienne was completely free (you don’t pay for children under 3), and she won’t be the next time we go, so there will be added expenses in the future. But this was for a moderate resort, so obviously you can save money if you go for one of the value resorts instead.
Leading up to the trip, I got a lot of questions from people about whether Nora knew about it or not. We actually never even thought about surprising her on the day of or anything like that. And although those surprises are really fun, the building anticipation as we got closer and closer was really fun, too! We even had a Mickey Mouse paper chain going on to countdown for the last few weeks. :)
I think that sums up the planning and thought process behind everything leading up to our trip. Next, I think I’ll tackle the travel itself. With the start of some actual trip PICTURES! More to come!
We had Nora’s preschool parent-teacher conference yesterday. Michael and I walked into her empty classroom and took a seat across from her teacher, in the tiny blue chairs at the too-short tables. Twenty minutes dedicated to hearing someone else’s evaluation of our girl.
It went really well. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but it turned out that the teachers had been evaluating Nora in several areas over the last several weeks, making notes about her in each category.
We heard about how sweet she is. Independent, able to do most everything on her own except for needing a little help getting into and out of the princess dresses. :) Exhibits a preference for a lot of the manipulative play activities, like the dollhouse, puzzles, coloring, tracing. An observer. Reserved, but willingly jumps in to play with others if they invite her to. Shy, but participates fully in all of the group singing, poem recitation, learned hand motions, etc. A great listener. Follows directions and easily transitions from one thing to another when it’s time. Receptive to the lessons. LOVES the projects. Plays most often with Juliana, Mackenna and Jillian, and could probably benefit from having a few play dates with one or more of them outside of school. 
In the area of speech, her teacher did point out that she has some pretty obvious pronunciation issues, so she recommends speech therapy. I was not surprised, as even we have a difficult time understanding some of her words sometimes. I’m happy to get her services, eager even, because I know it can be frustrating to her at times. She’s astonishingly smart about it, though. If we don’t understand what she’s saying, she finds another way to tell us by giving us clues.
An example: We were in the car last week and she was saying something to me, I thought she was saying, “Wheel.” When I asked her if that’s what she was saying, she said, “No, Mommy. You know… IN THE SEA?! LIKE A DOLPHIN?!” Whale. Duh, Mommy. But to my credit, I was close. :)
Anyway, I’m a little pissed off at myself with the speech thing because I feel like I should’ve been advocating for her sooner. We had her evaluated shortly before she turned two because she had so few words. At that time, they determined that she was delayed but only mildly, not by enough to qualify for services. They encouraged us and told us not to worry, that she’d catch up. In the months that followed, she had a major word explosion so it seemed that they were right. I didn’t give it much more thought until the last six months or so, when I started to feel like she was markedly harder to understand than her peers. But we have a couple of friends whose kids go to the same preschool (different classes, but in some instances, same teacher) and one of their sons was recommended for speech services in October. It gave me a false sense of security about the situation because I figured that if her son was getting flagged by our teacher, we would’ve been notified if she believed there was an issue with Nora, too. Apparently not so.
Live and learn, I suppose. I’m going through the process of getting her started down that path now.
The teacher went on to tell us that Nora’s doing really great with her identification of letters, something I’ve been noticing lately, too. She’s working hard on learning to identify more numbers—she’s got 1-10 down, but needs more work on the others. She can count to 30 completely on her own, but can go to as high as 100 with prompting at each new “decade”—40, 50, 60, and so on. She understands the pattern of each, which is apparently good.
She showed us Nora’s drawings, which was another area of assessment. They were instructed to draw a self portrait, and Nora’s made my heart happy. The teacher pointed out the level of detail (eyelashes, fingers, purple sneakers, etc.) and deemed it “really good.” LOL. It’s too cute not to share:
Last night, when I showed Nora, she pointed out another detail we had all missed—the fact that she had been wearing her Frozen shirt that day. “But I didn’t have enough room to draw both Anna and Elsa on my shirt, so this is just Elsa.” Yep, there’s a miniature stick-figure person on the big stick-figure’s shirt. I DIE.
All told, it was a solid “report card.” It seems she is well on track for kindergarten in September.
Right?
Hold up, now. Not so fast.
Backing up… I always assumed Nora would go to kindergarten when she turned 5. Her birthday is September 11, the cutoff birthday here is December 1. I knew, of course, that it depends on the child and we would for sure consider other options if something unexpected came up in preschool. But barring any big problems, why wouldn’t she go?
It wasn’t until Nora’s 4-year well child visit to the pediatrician in September that we were introduced to the concept of redshirting. Our pediatrician didn’t call it this, but she asked about our plans for kindergarten. When we casually told her that we expected Nora to go next year as long as preschool went well, she paused for a moment and said, “I urge you to think about it more. Don’t decide until next summer. Because here’s the thing: MOST parents with children with fall birthdays are now holding them back. So Nora would be going to school with some children who are a full year older than her.”
I was dumbfounded. MOST parents are doing this? How are we just now hearing about this? And… Nora’s birthday is in early September. We’re not talking about a November birthday here. *My* birthday is in mid-August and I was always pretty young for my class; I never really thought twice about it. Because you go to kindergarten when you’re five. And by the way, Vivienne’s birthday is in early August… will this even be a topic of discussion when she becomes eligible for kindergarten? Will people even MENTION the idea of holding her back? I’m guessing not. And if that is indeed the case… do the 5-6 weeks between Vivienne’s birthday and Nora’s birthday REALLY make a difference?!
We left feeling like our pediatrician might be a little crazy. We love her, but what?
And then I started hearing it from other sources. That “most” parents are holding fall babies back and giving them an extra year. There was suddenly all of this external pressure to hold her back. And for no real reason except for the date of her birth.
I’ve since learned that this is called “redshirting.” It’s a trend—the practice of holding children back and starting them late to kindergarten so that they will have academic, social, and physical (sports) advantages as they progress through school.
I’m going to come right out and say: I think redshirting is bullshit.
Now, before anyone gets angry at me, I understand that in many areas of the country, the kindergarten cutoff birth dates are much earlier, so it might seem ridiculous to even consider sending Nora to kindergarten with a September birthday! And that’s fine, but that’s not the way it is here in New York. And just because you may have an earlier cutoff doesn’t mean you’re not dealing with redshirting, right? If your kindergarten cutoff birthday is August 1, I’m guessing that in some areas, parents of May, June, and July babies are also being faced with this lunacy.
I ALSO understand that it depends on the child. I absolutely get it. My own mother opted to hold my brothers back a year (they have an October birthday) because 1) they were active, busy little kids, 2) they are boys, and 3) they are twins, which apparently puts them at a disadvantage in and of itself. With those three strikes, my mom said the decision was easy. So, if you have a child you’ve decided to hold back for one reason or another—good for you. Honestly, you know your kid better than anybody and I’m sure your decision is a good one.
What I take issue with is redshirting as a trend. I take issue with it being “just something that you do” now.
I take issue with the fact that I sat through an overwhelmingly positive parent-teacher conference with a report on my daughter that gave us every reason to believe that she is excelling. And then, at the end, when I reminded the teacher that we’re still planning to send her to kindergarten in the fall, we suddenly got the “An extra year really does give a lot of kids an advantage” talk. Say what? You just got through telling us how wonderfully she’s doing.
Nora’s shy. She ALWAYS has been. But so were Michael and I. We STILL are. So I have a hard time understanding how giving her an extra year in preschool is going to supposedly “fix” the shyness. We can’t fix a personality trait—it’s who she is. And now that we know that the speech challenges are a real thing, I’m fairly confident they could be related. Once she knows people can understand her better, perhaps it’ll give her a boost of confidence to come out of her shell a little more quickly than is typical for her. The funny thing is that when I read about marks of social maturity or readiness for kindergarten, none of them have to do with being shy.
And the whole “she’ll be among the youngest in her class” argument… so?? Someone has to be. Whether it’s the kid with the September birthday or the kid with the July birthday, SOMEONE is going to be the youngest. I don’t think that being the youngest damns a child to academic and social failure. Nor do I think it even presents a true disadvantage. The whole topic of redshirting is hugely controversial, but a lot of the research—I’ve read quite a bit of it—seems to indicate that there is no real advantage to doing it.
I’ve periodically lost sleep over this debate the past several months. Michael and I have had countless conversations about it. We’ve discussed it with numerous friends and family. It’s a difficult decision. But what weighs on my mind most is what is right for MY CHILD, and I don’t see the need for the unnecessary outside pressures about redshirting her simply because it is “what most parents do.” It’s putting an enormous amount of additional stress onto our shoulders and it’s crap.
I also think that the “most parents are doing it” thing we’ve been hearing is an exaggeration. I’ve since learned of many parents who are planning to send their “young 5s” children next year. I wish someone could show me statistics—local ones!—since it seems to vary so much from region to region and state to state. It’s my understanding that there are parts of the country where redshirting has not caught on at all.
Overall, I believe it’s a slippery slope. Those of us with children with fall birthdays start holding our kids back, then the parents with children with summer birthdays will start getting antsy that now their children are the youngest. Then they’ll start holding their kids back. Then it’ll be the spring birthdays. And then what? We won’t send our kids to kindergarten until they’re seven?
To redshirt or not to redshirt? I don’t think there is a “right” or a “wrong” answer for Nora. I’m starting to believe that she’ll be fine no matter what we decide.
At one point during this whole debate the past few months, I had a moment of thinking, “Keep her little. What’s the rush? She doesn’t need to go yet.” Because I’ve spent a lot of time on both sides of the argument before landing where I am currently. Then I realized that by not sending her to kindergarten, I’m not keeping her little. She’ll still be 5, and then she’ll still be 6. The only thing I’m buying by holding her back is an extra year of A TEENAGER at home. And do we really want that? LOL.
So, parents: All this to say, please reconsider holding your kids back for no reason except for the date of their birth. Because really, what are we trying to accomplish? It’s OKAY to be the youngest. Consider the societal impact on what it is that we’re doing with this redshirting business. Make the decision with only your child and his/her abilities in mind; don’t worry so much about how he/she compares to his peers. Let’s have confidence in our kids, their teachers, and ourselves as parents.
Hand them a green shirt instead.
Last week was crazy because my kids were home sick every single day, and we were juggling doctors’ appointments, cuddles, meds, and work.
This week was crazy because my kids were home sick every single day last week, and we needed to catch up. Michael and I also started on Monday our nutrition challenge with our CrossFit gym, which has meant a pretty drastic lifestyle change and a hell of a lot more time in the kitchen preparing things. Also? I took on a cookie decorating and photo slideshow job for a friend of mine, which ate up every evening this week.
Speaking of eating… (I did say “ate,” didn’t I?)
Let’s pause for just a second while we reflect on the fact that I TOOK ON A COOKIE DECORATING PROJECT the very same week I GAVE UP SUGAR AND CARBS. Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. But I did learn that I have a hell of a lot more willpower than I ever knew, as I did not have one single bite, lick, or taste of neither the cookies nor the frosting. Oh, I wanted to. When I was done rolling the dough and cutting out the cookies, there is always just a teeny bit of superfluous dough that is not big enough to make another roll-out cookie. I usually pop that delicious, buttery dough right into my mouth as a reward for my efforts, but not this time. I shaped it into a small circular cookie and baked it up and let Nora have it a couple of nights later. And oh man, when I was working with that wonderfully sugar-filled royal icing, there were a couple of times when I MOST DEFINITELY wanted to lick that spoon before I put it into the sink. But nope.
So I’ve been very good this week. No cheats. But that doesn’t mean it’s been going particularly well. Last night, I was feeling mighty rage-y, and this morning I was not in the best of moods, either. I assume it’s my body going through some sugar/carb withdrawals, but if this truly IS “withdrawals,” they’re not as bad as I expected them to be. I love sugar and surely eat more than I should on the regular, so I would’ve expected the withdrawals to be tougher. And sure, I would love to grab a big sandwich right now, or eat a cookie, or pop a few M&Ms into my mouth—don’t get me wrong. But the actual CRAVINGS, so far, have not been awful, either.
One thing I have to note… have you ever weighed yourself on a Monday? After a weekend of a few beers, some wine, eating out at a restaurant, and some extra “treats”? DON’T DO IT. For the love of God, don’t do it. Normally, I weigh myself maybe once or twice a week, just to keep on top of it and make sure nothing crazy is happening. But NEVER on Mondays. This past Monday, though, I was forced to step on a scale to get my starting weight for the nutrition challenge, and I had to do it in front of my trainer, who recorded it. YOU. GUYS. I saw a weight I have not seen in years. It was a good 6-7 lbs. heavier than I’ve averaged the last several months, and 7 lbs. more than what I had weighed ON FRIDAY. I knew it wasn’t “real” weight gain (I didn’t go THAT crazy… BLOAT IS REAL!), but still… that was rough. The good news is that I’m already “down” 6.5 pounds on the challenge since my body did go back to (my) normal within a few days, which kind of feels like cheating. But it’s not like I purposely bulked up, so whatever. I’M not counting it as weight loss.
{Paleo Pad Thai – Very good!}
Anyway, back to the “nutrition” part of this… the first two days, I was freaking STARVING all of the time. I could’ve eaten just 10 minutes before—and rather sizable meals, too—but no matter, my stomach was already like W.T.F. GIVE ME MORE FOOD. GIVE ME CARBS. The hunger has leveled out and now I’m more just depressed by my lack of food choices. And I know I don’t REALLY lack food choices but it certainly feels that way. The diet itself is basically paleo, but with a few optional modifications (we can eat legumes in moderation, can have “natural” dairy in moderation, etc.). But the cleaner we eat, the more points we get—it’s not just a “diet,” it’s a challenge and there is competition involved!—so we’re trying to stay away from that stuff when possible.
I’m having the most trouble with meat, which as you can imagine, is a huge part of the paleo diet. I’m not a huge meat eater normally, although we do usually have it at least a few times a week. But when I eat meat it’s usually IN stuff. I’m eating shredded chicken in a rice dish, or ground beef in sauce for spaghetti. Or meat in tortillas, or inside of a BUN. Now, all of those lovely “wrapper” foods that help disguise the meat for me are prohibited. I ate a chicken breast all on its own for lunch yesterday and it was… grossing me out.
Then Michael and I made burgers (with cauliflower “rice” and roasted veggies) for dinner last night and we, of course, ate them bunless—and with mustard, no ketchup!—and I’ll be honest, I was just miserable about it. I questioned multiple times yesterday why I am doing this to myself. I’m not even unhappy with my body, I just think it could probably be better and wanted to take on the challenge to experiment. But I was thinking to myself, There is no way in the world that I am going to be able to sustain this type of eating long-term, so what is the point? Might as well just give up now!
I talked myself down off of that ledge (for now), and we are on Day 5. Of 35. The struggle is real, my friends. But I’m hoping I can get into a groove. There is so much PLANNING and PREPARATION involved, and I knew that going into it—you should’ve seen the size of our grocery list last weekend, *cough* $245 later *cough*—but it was a different story to live it. I’m hoping we can take some of the lessons learned this week and apply them to next to make it easier on ourselves. More variety in recipes (and just more of them in general—we need to COOK lunches, not just dinners). Bigger batches of everything we make so that there are healthy amounts of leftovers.
A CHALLENGE, indeed. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I talk about it. But tips from any of you veteran paleo or Whole30 folks are always appreciated.
Switching gears…
I realized I never updated with a post about the outcome of my hair. I didn’t end up doing any color/highlights this time—maybe next!—but I did get a healthy cut. When she first started cutting, I looked down at the floor and said, “Is that all you’re taking off?” Surprised, she said, “What? You think I should do more? It’s a good 3 inches.” But my hair still looked so… LONG. But we stuck with her judgment and I like how it turned out. It wasn’t a huge, drastic change but it was definitely noticeably lighter and easier to manage for me, which makes sense since it was a cut that was so long overdue.
Anyway, here’s the “before” again, followed by the “after” pic:
Again, no actual color change (lighting is just way different between the pics). Maybe I’ll get more brave with my next appointment and go for something more different. I do like this, though, so we’ll see. :)
On a side note, I have been using doTERRA’s hair products (they contain essential oils) for about a month now and I LOVE. I have never really had any particular loyalty to hair products in the past, I just bought off the shelf at Target, things that were on sale. I received the doTERRA hair products as a reward—so for free—and I think I’m going to have to fork over the cash to use them from now on. They are paraben and sulfate free. I’ve tried other “natural” shampoo and conditioner and they made my hair feel… dry or something. The only natural conditioner I used before didn’t seem like it was really conditioning, but this one does.
And kind of a funny anecdote to add to this testimonial, but important nonetheless. This time of year, I typically have MAJOR problems with static in my hair. Change my clothes? Static. Wear a sweater? Static. Put on or take off my coat? Static. It has been inescapable in the past, just something I need to deal with in the wintertime. Since I’ve started using the doTERRA shampoo and conditioner? No static. Not once. No kidding. Anyway, I liked the products a lot even before my haircut, but now I LOVE them since I’m using them on healthier hair.
Any and all questions about essential oils or doTERRA… email me at heatherdriveblog at yahoo dot com. There’s still a really great promo going on, and I’m going to be placing another one of my own orders in a couple of weeks. As always, I’d love to get you the wholesale discount!
And with that, I will sign off for now. Happy Friday, all. Enjoy the weekend.
Since Sunday, we’ve had a horrible run of sickness in our house. It started last week with a little bit of runny noses, and then Vivienne developed a sporadic cough on Saturday. On Sunday night, she was up in the middle of the night with a fever, just wanting to be rocked and held and snuggled.
Monday morning, full-blown illness for Vivienne, with sad, sick eyes and all. Nora was feeling a little under the weather but still wanted to go to school so we sent her. Vivienne stayed at home with me and I took her to the doctor, where she was diagnosed with an ear infection. And by the time Nora got home that night, she was DOWN FOR THE COUNT. I guess she was falling asleep on the floor at Mary’s at around 4:00, and then fell asleep in the car again with Michael on the way home. Nora had a fever as well.
I thought we just had a little bout of sickness on our hands, but four days into it—with the kids home ALL WEEK now—it’s pretty intense! This is more than just a little cold, I fear. We were back at the pediatrician with BOTH of them last night. After almost two hours in the office consisting of breathing treatments, raging ear infections for Viv, new antibiotics, and swab tests for RSV and influenza (still waiting on results), we were on our way back home to tuck the two sickies into bed for the night.
It has been exhausting. I don’t think we’ve ever seen them this sick, and the fact that they’re both like this at the same time makes it a little extra miserable. Last night, Nora was crying and whimpering in her sleep and we felt so helpless. It’s a chorus of hacking coughing in our house and sometimes, all I can do is look at Michael and laugh a little. Because although it is NOT funny, there’s just nothing else to do at this point.
This morning, we are MAYBE turning a corner? At least for Viv. I’m afraid to be too hopeful, since I thought this same thing at first yesterday but then we went back down the slippery slope of fever and horrible coughing and excessive tiredness.
Michael and I have been trading off, in and out of work all week. I’m falling behind and it’s frustrating but all I want is to be home with my babies.
Needless to say, I am practically bathing in essential oils, just praying that Michael and I somehow escape the umbrella of plague that has come over our house. Fingers crossed.
I haven’t really liked my hair in a long time. It had to have been at least before getting pregnant with Vivienne. During pregnancy, I kind of just let it go, and then afterward… well, I lost damn near all of it during postpartum shedding. It was so bad that I seriously had bald spots up near my face. Awful.
The other aspect to this whole this is that I’ve been “between” stylists. I had the same stylist from the time I was six years old, all the way through until a couple of years ago. He was really affordable; I think he gave me a price break since I had been with him for so long. But it got to a point where he was impossible to get an appointment with, I’d have to wait for months. And I don’t know, I’m not the kind of person to schedule a haircut many months in advance, or even on a regular basis—I like to be able to just call when I feel like I need it. So anyway, the last time I called him, the receptionist told me that there weren’t any appointments available for like 2-3 months, and that she’d have him call me back to see if he could squeeze me in. I never heard from him. After that, I was decided to be done.
Then, I started going to the same stylist my mom had switched to. I liked her, she was nice. But she always gave me really boring, straight cuts. And the last time I went to her, she cut my hair completely unevenly. It was enough that it was really obvious. I called her about it and she was apologetic, asking me to come in so she could fix it. I went in, she said she fixed it, and then when I got home and really washed it and dried it again, it was STILL uneven. So I decided I was done with her, too.
I went to a new stylist—recommended by a few women I know—this past spring and it was fine, really. But it was expensive, more than I have ever paid for a haircut. I didn’t even get any color! Sometime after that, I realized… why didn’t I go see my friend, Colleen? One of my suitemates from college became a stylist and I have never been to her because I couldn’t justify it when the stylist I was already seeing was so much cheaper. But now, I’m a real grown up and I suppose I can pay for a real grown up cut. :) And I’m sick of hunting around for a new stylist, so I’m going to see her on Saturday!
I’m long overdue for a change. So I’m getting the itch to do SOMETHING. Should I color? Should I chop? I’m not really sure. I’m leaning toward the latter, for sure, but I’m not sure if I’ll chicken out.
Here’s where I’m at. Pardon the awkward selfie.
At the very least, I need some fresh layers. But… any inspiration to send my way?
Right now, it’s feeling very “heavy,” so I’m tempted to take off a good chunk of length. But how much, and styled how? I need something that’s pretty low maintenance, too, as I have basically zero extra time to be fussing with my hair in the mornings.
I’ve taken to Pinterest and saved a few things, but I’m really hoping that Colleen will have some ideas and expertise to help, too!
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
