My dad I figured out my camera, so now I have a photo of the Medium Ash Brown hair!

Tilted-down face makes 95% reduction in under-chinnage, but 50% increase in forehead size

Oh, wait, I was supposed to be showing you the 50% increase in Morose:

Next topic. We need to talk about something, and it has to do with what to do with your EYEBROWS if you dye your hair darker.

The haircolor box says NOT to use the haircolor on your eyebrows or you WILL GO BLIND. But let’s say you were all, “What does it matter if I can see, if all I can see is that my eyebrows don’t match my hair?,” and so you played it dangerous and put the stuff on your eyebrows. But it didn’t even WORK! So you RISKED BLINDNESS for NOTHING!

In that case, I’ll tell you what you SHOULDN’T do. DON’T buy a box of Just For Men Mustache and Beard Color. I thought you said you WEREN’T blinded the first time! Can’t you see that it’s for MEN and MUSTACHES and BEARDS? It is not for girl eyebrows! Just because it talks about how perfect it is for coarse, resistant facial hair doesn’t mean it’s for YOUR coarse, resistant facial hair, or that eyebrows are coarse and resistant and facial! Don’t be stupid!

Besides, it’s still hair dye, and just like other hair dye, it can cause PERMANENT BLINDNESS if you get it in your eyes. So it is CLEARLY marked that you should NOT use it for your eyebrows! So don’t!

You might as well not even read further unless you’re a MAN intending to use this product AS INTENDED.

Okay, guys, you know how girl haircolor kits have to be mixed all at once and then you can’t use the stuff after an hour or it’ll explode or whatevs? The beard and mustache kit is different. It has two little tubes, and you can mix exactly the amount you want on the little tray.

Lipstick for scale. MAN lipstick.

The whole process takes 10-15 minutes, so if I were a man I’d do this about 15 minutes before I’d normally get into the shower, and I’d already be wearing a bathrobe so I wouldn’t have to pull a pajama top over my head with this stuff on my beard/mustache.

The instructions say not to use the little tubes to mix any more potion after 3 months, but the reason is “to ensure highest level of quality.” That’s insufficiently persuasive. Maybe if it were “because after 3 months this stuff will chaw its way through the plastic tubes and melt a hole in your linen closet shelves”—but it isn’t, is it, it’s just about highest possible levels of quality, which, pfff. And let’s say I knew someone who was using it on, uh, a small mustache—yeah, not eyebrows but a mustache, a slightly-graying mustache exactly the size of two eyebrows, and that she he said she’d he’d been using the same box for nearly two years. Also, just as a total non sequitur, my mother is not blind in EITHER eye. Nor am I.

It comes with a wee little brush, which is just perfect for using on your eyebrows tiny eyebrow-shaped mustache. Maybe you want to put your non-brush-holding hand protectively over your eye. No reason.

ONLY do this to a MUSTACHE. Not an eyebrow! Eyebrow shown only for illustrative purposes, with eye-safe conditioner instead of hair dye, just so you can see what the brush would be like if I HAD a mustache, which I don’t.

You (the man) would wait 5 minutes. This is a good opportunity to manfully clean the little tray and brush and put them back in the box for the next time your mustache is looking too gray or too blond or whatever.

Don’t worry if when you next look in the mirror the extra potion has made the skin around your mustaches look kind of weird.

But next time you might want to keep the potion more IN THE LINES, just because nobody needs facial fuzz to be darker.

After 5 minutes, you (you’re still a man) can get into the shower and rinse. You should be VERY CAREFUL not to get let the rinse water SLOSH UP into your eyes. Maybe you should squeeze your eyes very tightly shut. You should use a mild shampoo to wash your mustaches, and it’s a good idea to have that shampoo bottle where you can find it while groping around with your eyes tightly squeezed shut, because seriously, don’t open your eyes while rinsing or shampooing or re-rinsing the dyed parts. Just in case the water sloshes UP. Be really careful, men.

Just For Men is sold at Target for $6-7. Or maybe it isn’t, how would I know? I’m not a man, nor do I have a beard or mustache, nor do I want to be PERMANENTLY BLIND. My mother, who similarly has no reason to know where such a thing might be sold, says that if she were just guessing, she might guess that Walgreens also had a selection. But she adds that she really wouldn’t know.

I have so many really great emails from friends, sitting there in my inbox like little jewels, waiting for me to….I guess I wouldn’t be answering a jewel. Well, so that’s perfect then! I’m too distracted to focus on them, because Paul left for work angry this morning, and even though he wasn’t angry at ME, it was still a poor way to start the day.

I was already a little crabby with him because he once again hogged the hot water, and I don’t know how he can continue doing that even after I’ve explained that the way I see it, he’s weighing out the hot water in his hands, saying, “I will divide this between my sweetheart and me, and I will do it in the way I think is most fair”—and then he takes 85% of it for himself, so what does that mean about how he feels about me?

And so I was doing some nice careful breathing (through my SHIVERS), and also reminding myself that Paul is not someone who Thinks Symbolically, and even when I point out the symbolism to him he doesn’t see it that way, so I need to not always take it so personally, because it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me, it just means he’s an oblivious fathead.

But because he also hogged the available showering TIME (AS PER USUAL), I got out of the shower kind of late—so he was already a teeny bit late for work when he went out to his car, realized he’d forgotten something, and then realized he’d locked himself out and couldn’t ring the doorbell because he’d wake the couple of children who were not yet awake, and didn’t have his key because it was already in the ignition of the car, way down the driveway.

His knock was kind of irritable, and when I opened the door for him he made an irritable remark about the stupidness of our whole door-locking system, and I just let that go because I’m familiar with those kinds of feelings and know it doesn’t do any good to have someone telling you reasonably that maybe you’re just a little crabby about something else and perhaps we don’t need to go rushing out to buy a new door this very morning.

(Although perhaps we WILL need to buy a new door if someone keeps SHUTTING it so IRRITABLY. I’m just saying.)

Well, and then he got back out to his car and realized he’d forgotten something else, and a swear word was launched into the fresh morning air, and I had to do some fast thinking. When people around me get angry, I catch it like I’m a lightning rod. And then it has to be redirected at something, and I’d prefer that not be the case when it’s just me and the kids in the house, because then a cat is going to get shoved with a foot or a tray of cookies is going to get eaten. Or TWO trays.

You know how worry can morph rapidly into anger? Like when someone is late and you’re picturing them in a car crash and imagining how you’d probably have to be sedated when the doctor came out of the operating room with the bad news, and then they waltz in all perky and “Oh, am I late?,” and you think maybe you should be sedated NOW lest there be bad news SOON? I wondered if that might work in the opposite direction too, so I tried to change my budding anger into worry. “He’s crabby, and he’s late, and now he’ll be a little bit later, and so he probably won’t drive safely,” I told myself. “He could easily Never Come Home.” Not quite enough. “This could be The Last Time You See His Face.” Better. “Later, you’ll remember every moment of this morning. This LAST morning.” There!

Meanwhile he was stomping through the house to get the thing he forgot, and then stomping past again and shutting the door too hard behind him, and I tried harder to picture him in a hospital bed all hooked up to tubes and machines. Then he REVVED out of the driveway and I added some pitiful bruises to his unconscious face. And put out a stick of butter to soften for cookies.

Today was an eventful day. I debuted my new hair color, which I would like to show to you but I can’t figure out how to get my new camera hooked up to my computer. I mean, I CAN figure out how to hook it up, and I HAVE hooked it up, but my new camera and my computer do not seem to be hitting it off, and no actual hooking up is occurring.

So I have a camera CHOCK FULL of photos where I’m tilting my head in various ways trying to find the angle that will make my jawline appear Sharp and Tight rather than Plump and Pillowy, but I can’t show any of them to you yet. You will just have to take my word for it that Medium Ash Brown was a significantly better choice for my complexion than Tempted Peach. Medium Ash Brown more closely resembles my natural No Particular Color (my mother calls it Wheat; my mother-in-law calls it Dishwater), while being a significant enough change that it was fun and interesting—thus satisfying the intended wallowing goal (specifically, wallowing goal 2A).

Furthermore, the darker shade has increased Morose Appearance by, say, 50%. It is much easier to look pale and sad with darker hair. Even Paul noticed: tonight we were both working in the kitchen, and I reached a waiting point in the cooking process and sat down on a stepstool for a moment to contemplate the weight of woe, and he said, “Could you sit morosely over here instead? I need to use the counter.”

I also went to Target in search of Parker’s shoes for Elizabeth, and TOTALLY SCORED, finding about ten pairs of shoes (assorted styles/sizes, including two pairs of The Parker) at 75% off.

AND I chose a winner for the Daily Grommet giveaway. The amusing thing is that the random number generator first chose SarahO, whose comment was: “Okay, I’m not actually entering the contest. But, I just wanted to to say that I bought the CARES travel harness when my daughter was 2. Can I just say that it is the BEST thing ever?? I love it!” So…I made it choose again, and it chose Nikki Page, which was an excellent choice because Nikki’s comment started with: “Okay, I really could use the CARES Airline seat for an upcoming trip so I’ll jump.” Email me, Nikki, and I’ll connect you to the goods!

AND I started a tally of frame votes, and we’ll have to wait and see if I finish that tally or if I just make up numbers to support the frame choices I like best. Also, isn’t it weird to have the site a different color? It’s been the same shade of blue since the very first entry, and now suddenly it’s….cream? What the hay? Or is it “What the hey?” You know, I’ve never written that out before.

Today Wendy is right: it’s impossible to choose a frame if the site background color is not the same as the wall color. So I’ve taken down the Tiffany Swistle Blue temporarily, replacing it with the cream color of our walls.

One thing I’m doing recently is finding ways to make “five children” seem Right and Complete. I look at this year’s Christmas picture and admire the way five children space out so nicely with two adults (big kid, adult with little kid on lap, little kid, adult with little kid on lap, big kid). I consider our car, which I love, and which seats seven. I consider the fundraising brick I filled out, which had enough room for seven names but not for eight.

My friend The New Girl recently sent me a giftie of a very pretty journal for writing wallowing thoughts in. With it she sent a notecard, and the notecard had a picture on it of four eggs in a nest. Which gave me the idea of looking for a picture with FIVE eggs.

I documented my search in today’s Milk and Cookies post. (And by the way, if you have us in a feed reader, you may have noticed that it’s not working anymore. That got knocked out of kilter by the site upgrade, so you have to resubscribe to the feed.)

What was I saying? Oh, yes, so I did find a picture of five eggs in a nest, and I’m going to buy it, and furthermore I’m going to have it matted and framed at the same time, because if I don’t, I know perfectly well the print will sit in its cardboard-lined envelope for YEARS while I don’t take it to the frame store.

So I thought I’d just, you know, pick the frame I liked best. AHA HA HA HA HA HA HA! You know what happens when you start playing around with mats and frames? You create a bizillion wonderful options, and you can’t choose one and let the others go. Observe:

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

Light blue mat? Medium blue mat? Darker blue mat? Gold frame? Silver frame? Light green frame? White frame? Brown frame? Brownish-gold frame? Plainish frame? Ornate frame? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Poor Kara Marie, who is not only an artist but an artist who has worked in a framing shop, offered to help me. Can you imagine the regret she must be feeling right about now? So I thought I’d call in reinforcements for her. HELP.

I can tell you a couple of things:

1. The most important thing to me is the eggs. I want the eye drawn to the eggs.
2. That’s all I got!

Every so often I get offered something to give away. Typically the giveaway requires the reader to jump through a hoop. I don’t like to make you jump through hoops (oooh, unless they’re ON FIRE! That’s AWESOME!)—but I don’t like to say “no” to free stuff on your behalf, either. “Oh, no,” I see myself saying with a dismissive wave of my hand. “They don’t need anything. They’re fine.”

So if the giveaway looks good to me, and if the hoop seems easy and not too tricky (or it’s ON FIRE), I sometimes do it—and this is one of those times. So if you’re all “OMG HATE THESE,” it’s safe to skip, because that’s all we’re doing today. Item one on the agenda: the giveaway pack. Item two on the agenda: the hoop.

The Giveaway Pack:
Bunnytail Outdoor Blanket ($48 retail value) AND a set of Kipiis Bib Clips ($25 retail value) AND a CARES Airline Travel Restraint ($75 retail value)

The Hoop:
These things are offered in the hopes that you will check out a site called Daily Grommet. It’s a site that finds clever thingies like the three in the giveaway pack (the travel restraint is basically a 1-pound folding child’s car seat for airplanes, which, OMG). You’re supposed to click over there, browse around a little, and then come back here (HERE, not THERE) and leave a comment saying what you like about the site, or what you’d change, or any feedback/reactions/suggestions. In exchange for being a little feedback machine, you get entered into a drawing for the giveaway pack—and the random number generator is blind to whether you were complimentary or critical. And remember: leave the comment HERE. On THIS post. Before Thursday, January 15th, at noon U.S. Pacific time.

I ruined my body having children
My body would have been ruined by age anyway
And then: death.
Halfway there!

I found a chin hair. It was a quarter-inch long by the time I found it
As I was looking for more, I saw the beginnings of Neck Crepe
And my nose isn’t getting any smaller
And I guess it’s time to get a nostril-hair clipper.

I saw an ad that said parentheses didn’t belong on my face. Stupid ad.
Is my hairline further back than it used to be?
When I go grey it probably won’t be the pretty kind.

I wasted my youth having children.
I wasted my youth not having children.

I wasted my college education
I should have spent the money on something else
Or someone else could have used that education.
All I really took away from it was an “MRS” degree
Well, two MRS degrees
So I guess I wasted one of those, too.

I should have married someone older than me
Instead of the same age
Then I wouldn’t look older than him.
Thanks a lot, Mother Nature
You nasty ageist bitch
You’re not getting any younger either.

One school of thought teaches that if you’re feeling blue, you should be especially careful to exercise regularly and eat healthy foods. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind. Comfort should come from nutrition and endorphins and healthy inner emotional healing, and also from the support of good friends. Need to ramp it up a little? Try meditation. Or therapy.

I prefer the “wallowing” method. I will tell you how it’s done. There are four basic components: Eating, Shopping, Diversions, and Brooding.

1. Eating

A. Caffeine things and sugar things and fat things. For maximum impact, take together. One of the nice things about normally taking your coffee with skim milk and Splenda is that in these sad times you can upgrade to heavy whipping cream and tons of sweetened flavored creamer. Wheeeee!

B. Supplements that let you feel like you’re Taking Medicine—and may also incidentally help with mood and energy. I like fish oil, acidophilus, cod liver oil, iron, B-complex, vitamin C, flax seed oil, calcium with vitamin D, valerian root—-er, not all at once, though taking a nice assortment each day gives me the happy feeling of being an Invalid. (I first checked with my doctor AND pharmacist, OF COURSE, and wouldn’t advise taking supplements unless you first check with your own health care provider, especially if you actually ARE taking medicine.)

C. Salt things and fat things. For maximum impact, take together. It doesn’t have to be Cheetos and Sour Cream & Onion Pringles—you could also do Doritos and cashews, or Chex Mix and Ruffles, or whatever is best for YOU. Customize your wallow.

2. Shopping

A. Unnecessities. If financially possible, buy yourself some little things you don’t really need. I focus on COMFORT and FUN. I find hair color particularly good, since the “Who cares?” attitude that accompanies a blue mood helps me get over the fear/change hurdle. I also bought a fleece throw blanket to snuggle in.

B. Fun versions of normally-purchased items. I find scented things particularly helpful. Vanilla-lavender (shown in the previous picture) is supposed to be soothing, and I do find it soothing. I have the shampoo, the conditioner, the body wash, and the lotion, and when things are grim I use them ALL. I probably have a visible lavender cloud around me. (Not recommended for situations where other people have to breathe your aura.) Grapefruit is supposed to be mood-lifting and energizing, and I find it so, and also find it thirst-producing. I hate Target’s Method grapefruit stuff, but I love the Softsoap kind.

C. Inexpensive fun-but-useful stuff. I bought a whole bunch of 75%-off ornaments and cards and ribbon and gift tags. I spent a long time dithering pleasantly over choices.They cost money, but not MUCH money. And they’re not really “necessary,” but we WILL use them. I also bought a bunch of clothes for the kids on various season-end clearance sales, for next year, and a few things for right now. It improves my mood to have something new to put on a baby in the morning.

D. Totally boring necessities in large quantities. If the sensation of “putting things in a cart and paying for them” is comforting, but the sensation of “worrying later about the cost” is NOT, I buy things we DO need but not yet. This gives me some of the satisfaction of shopping, but without spending money I’ll wish I hadn’t spent. Plus, I find the “stocking up” feeling comforting. I especially enjoy buying pretty postage stamps, and brown sugar, and toilet paper.

3. Diversions

A. When I’m wallowing, I like to choose a task that has the appeal of Symbolic Melodrama—but is also genuinely useful to have done. My task right now is going through the boxes and boxes and BOXES of stored baby clothes, getting rid of the ones we no longer need for anyone (anything youngest-boy Henry has outgrown; anything only-girl Elizabeth has outgrown). I’ve found this an excellent opportunity to brood and wallow in self-pity. The girl clothes are going to my soon-due niece, which is very satisfying.

B. Spending time with a diverting hobby. Blogging, for example. Or painting, or reading, or baking, or whatever. Baking is good, if you like baking, because it provides you with an additional source of fat and sugar for the Eating component, and also makes the house smell nice as mentioned in the Shopping section. Plus, you can shop for the supplies.

C. Planning fun things to look forward to. I’m looking forward to my niece; I didn’t PLAN her but certainly she is one of the most exciting things I have ever looked forward to in my WHOLE LIFE. Plus, I can also put her in the Shopping category, because buying small pink clothes is one of the best soothing balms I know of. I’m also planning a Swistle Love care package giveaway for Valentine’s Day, because I love sending care packages and also it lets me shop. And I’m fantasizing about when the kids are older and Paul and I can dump them all in my parents’ basement and go on a trip to the town in Washington where we got married and had our first baby.

D. Movies and TV and books. Careful with this one: there’s a fine line to….hoe. Tread. Whatever. You want to nurse the wallow here, so you don’t want to accidentally get anything too feel-good that makes the world look like a good place again (Nanny McPhee, My Fair Lady). On the other hand, you don’t want to nurse the wallow right over the edge into actual mental illness, so let’s not get anything where a dog dies or where the filmmaker’s goal is to reveal the dark underbelly of the human condition. Some good movie choices: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Singles, When Harry Met Sally. Some good TV choices: Friends, Sports Night, Gilmore Girls. Some good book choices: Firefly Summer or Light a Penny Candle, both by Maeve Binchy—or really just about anything by Maeve Binchy; the PostSecret books; Suzanne Finnamore books; Elizabeth Berg books, although not the recent “other time period” ones she’s been writing; the Found books/magazines. What we’re looking for here is light but moody—humor and broody in the right proportions.

E. New fun things. The aforementioned hair-coloring would be a good idea. Or if you haven’t tried Postcrossing, a wallow is the perfect time for it: it lets you look forward to mail delivery each day, and also you can shop for postcards and pretty stamps.

4. Brooding

A. I like to spend some time sitting in a rocker-recliner, wrapped pitifully in a throw blanket and gazing into nowhere, thinking of all the things that Won’t Be. Allow a few thoughts to sucker-punch you—but not too many, we’re going for a good balance here. Wallowing, maybe a teeny bit of weeping, but not descending into genuine despair.

B. I don’t know if this is the same for you, but if someone else tells me I shouldn’t be sad because other people have it worse, I feel like doing some bitch-slapping and/or sarcastic air quoting. Or perhaps hooking one leg around the backs of their legs and giving them a swift shove. “Oh, I SHOULDN’T feel bad?,” I’d say, making heavy air quotes around the “shouldn’t.” “How very helpful!! You’re absolutely right! I’m magically cured!! Shouldn’t = doesn’t!” Then I’d do a little bitch-slapping.

Or, “Oh, other people have it WORSE? So I’m sure YOU have never wanted something that NOT EVERYONE has. You’ve never wished you could come up with the money to pay your rent—lots of people don’t even have roofs over their heads. You’ve never wished for a better job—lots of people would be happy to have ANY job AT ALL. You’ve never wished for a romance—lots of people DIE without EVER EXPERIENCING LOVE. You’ve never wished your husband would pick up his own goddamned underwear—SOME people’s husbands are DEAD. You’ve never said you’re hungry—lots of people are LITERALLY STARVING.” Then the swift shove, and perhaps a little creative kicking.

But if _I_ tell MYSELF this sort of thing, it’s helpful. It gives perspective, which is comforting. …It’s not very NICE, though, is it? I mean, essentially what I’m doing is making myself feel better by comparing other people’s lives unfavorably to mine. I’m in essence saying “At least I’m not one of THOSE sad sacks. Compared to THOSE people, my life suddenly looks GREAT.” Ick. Well, still. It can help make me feel happier with what I have, while hitting the perfect wallowing balance: I feel better, but I also reflect broodingly on all the sadnesses of the world I’m so far lucky not to be sharing.

There! I believe you now have all the information you need to start your own Wallow. Good luck, and good wallowing!

When I think about the No More Babies Decision of 2008, the things that come immediately to mind are the sad things, or the things that won’t now go as I was thinking they’d go, or the things I won’t get to look forward to. These are not helpful thoughts to have.

I was so grateful for all the great and comforting comments I got on that post. One of the many I’ve thought of again and again was Giselle‘s: she pointed out what her mother had pointed out to her (and what her grandmother pointed out to her mother): that there will always be a Last Baby, no matter how many you have.

This helped me separate out “sadness over no more babies” from “sadness over no sixth baby.” In my Sad List, many items are sixth-child specific, but many others are things I’d be just as sad about after a sixth baby, or after a seventh, or after an eighth. And as we math geniuses know, if something is present on both sides of an equation, you can strike it out. If something is the same whether we DO or DON’T have another child, then it is…well, irrelevant, in a sense. Irrelevant, at least, to the decision of whether or not to have another child.

I choose not to apply this math when I think of things that make me feel better: even if they’d be just as comforting after a sixth baby as after a fifth, I’ll take them now.

1. No more pregnancy nausea. It’s like having the stomach flu for three months. I’m not sorry to kiss it goodbye, and in fact I’m not going to kiss it.

2. No more OB appointments. It’s a 35-minute drive, a 20-minute wait, a 5-minute “wham, bam, measure you ma’am,” and then another 35-minute drive—and the babysitting arrangements get more challenging each time.

3. I can get rid of clothes as Henry/Elizabeth outgrow them. Those clothes take up a LOT of space in the basement.

4. Our city is doing a fundraiser, the kind where you can have whatever you want engraved on a brick that then is used in a public walkway. I wanted to get all our names on it, but it seemed sad to do that if we might later have another child whose name wouldn’t be on the brick. Now I can go ahead and order the brick. (Shut up. I am TRYING here.)

5. I don’t have to worry anymore about miscarriage, Down Syndrome, toxoplasmosis, Fifth Disease, placental abruption, uterine rupture, or any of the other things I worry about during pregnancy.

6. I can see the caboose: as we pass through each of the less-pleasant stages with Henry (the mobile-but-brainless early toddler stage, the potty-training stage), I can wave goodbye to them. See you later, stages. Bye, stages. Soon we won’t have to have a baby gate, or outlet covers, or car seats, or strollers, or…okay, I’m getting sad again, let’s move on.

7. I can move on to the next stage of life. I may be sorry to leave this one, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also look forward to the next one. I can start thinking about what job I might get after the kids are in school, and how nice it will be to have that second income for braces and glasses and sports equipment and college and all the other expenses of older children. I can start thinking about what interesting projects I might divert my Baby Energy to. I can start thinking, as some of you mentioned, about grandchildren. (OMG.)

8. I can better appreciate the children I already have: if I’m not looking ahead to the next baby, I have more attention to focus on the babies there already are.

9. I don’t have to worry that if I complain to Paul or act overwhelmed, he’ll use it as evidence in the court of whether or not to have more children. If the household dips briefly into chaos/squalor, as it so often does, I don’t have to panic that Paul is RIGHT THIS SECOND deciding “That’s IT! NO MORE!”

10. Paul can talk more freely about how cute the children are or how happy he is to have them, without worrying I might use it as evidence in the court of whether or not to have more children.

11. I can take medicines and supplements and vodkas and so forth, without thinking about how someone else’s body will be affected.

12. I can buy myself treats and little gifties, and I can buy cute little baby outfits for my soon-due niece, justifying the purchases as bandages and ointment for my sad heart.