Beth has posted my question in today’s Diary of a Playgroup Dropout, and if you guys have any advice about handling/managing/cutting/taming baby girl hair, go on over there and chip in. You don’t even have to have a baby girl–you can just have been a baby girl yourself at one time, or have known baby girls, or have heard something about difficult hair in general.

Also, if you know anything about a good child’s conditioner, please speak up. All I can find are ones that smell like gross fruity candy. I’d like one that smelled like regular baby shampoo, or even just like non-gross-fruity-candy.

I first found Beth’s column on ClubMom when Linda at Purple Is A Fruit linked to this column: “Would Somebody Shut Me Up Already?” and I’ve been reading every since. Good stuff.

Perhaps you are in the market for the kind of baby hat that will cause strangers to fall backwards into store shelves, scattering products and clutching their hearts?

You are in luck! Such a hat is on clearance at L. L. Bean: Take me to those ear hats and right quick. As seen on the Swistle Twins! Limited quantities available! Certain colors already sold out in certain sizes! Twins are modeling “Lake” (Edward) and “Pink Lilac” (Elizabeth).

Guess what I bought this weekend? A freezer! The act of blogging about it apparently filled me with fresh resolve. I went into the store, looked at the freezers, chose one, and it’ll be delivered Friday. It is an upright, even though those cost more to run, because I am not temperamentally suited to a chest freezer, and would always be “just this once” taking out the topmost items rather than the ones that were oldest. It’s a self-defrosting one, even though those too cost more to run, because I am at peace with myself the way I am, and I know I would never ever defrost the freezer, and eventually I would have one cubic foot of freezer space surrounded by many cubic feet of frost. I had been fretting about what size to choose, but the cost per year of running the three different sizes was basically the same (a $5/year difference between the smallest and the largest), and the largest was on sale for less than the cost of the medium-sized one, and so I bought the largest one. Yay, me! Before the baby is born I will be able to make all those yummy recipes you guys sent in.

I have a new rule for inclusion in the Rulebook For Parents, and I assume someone is compiling such a volume because it is clearly needed. The new rule is this: No parent may set up an activity for children that requires supervision, and then bail. For example: I may not set up Rob and William with fingerpaints, as if I am some sort of Fingerpaint Fairy bestowing favors, and then say to Paul, “See you later! I’m going to the store!”

Notice how cleverly I avoid implicating Paul as the rule-breaker when I use this example. It almost seems as if I could have broken the rule myself, and was now feeling remorse. But in fact what happened was that Paul set the twins loose in the house with cups of orange juice and crayons, and then took off on a walk with William.

The twins get very little time loose in the house: they spend most of their time in their room–which is also their playroom–and the large play yard in the living room. This is because they are still destructive, mindless animals, and because they get into trouble in two different directions at once. When they are out, they require intense supervision, ideally by two adults so that one can stop Edward from pulling the tape out of a videotape while the other stops Elizabeth from pulling out handfuls of crayons and throwing them under the couch. And do you think the twins are normally allowed to have cups of sticky, sticky orange juice while they are running free? No. No, they are not.

Certainly no one would want to be the one to re-cage the twins after someone else has promised them time to roam freely. You might as well set up an air raid siren–no, two air raid sirens–right inside your house, and let them whoop until your teeth fragment and skitter to the floor. And so I was trapped: the door closed behind Paul, and Elizabeth dropped her cup. Moments later, Edward upended the crayon bin. Moments after that, Elizabeth tripped and hit her mouth and started screaming, and Edward used the ensuing fuss as an opportunity to escape into the kitchen and start emptying cupboards. If I had come up with the twin freedom idea, I would have been cursing myself; as it was, I was cursing Paul. Paul was conveniently not there to receive the curses.

I don’t think I should always have to be the one issuing edicts around here, and yet that is the way it happens. Some of us seem to instinctively understand the rules, and others of us seem to need them spelled out. Writer of the rulebook, please take note.

Apparently you guys were just tapping your fingers impatiently through all the posts on baby names and recipes, dying for me to ask you instead what TV shows to watch.

I’ve watched Six Feet Under on DVD already; I found it almost too upsetting at times, but wonderful. The last episode had me sobbing—not just crying a little but snorting and heaving and choking. I think I watched the last part of it three times, and then had welling tears every time I thought of it for the next few days. And, um, also right this minute, writing about it.

On another topic, I told some people in my real life about my blog. It was a total secret before, and now it’s a mixed secret: I told Paul and my parents that the blog exists, but that they may not read it. This may have been a mistake. But I am not good with secrets, and I was starting to slip and have to cover it up, and also I wanted to be able to tell Paul and my parents when something awesome happened (“CATHERINE NEWMAN commented on my blog!!” “SUNDRY reads my blog!!”).

As you might expect, there have been mixed reactions to my sudden revelation. Paul was a little crabby, especially when I made him actually literally promise not to look for the blog or read it—but also made him listen to stories of blog happiness. My mom, who is the kind of mom who would walk right past an open diary, was just “Oh! How nice!” My dad is more, “If it’s a public blog, it should be public”–that is, he should get to read the whole thing, because everybody on the internet gets to. My argument is that it isn’t really public. Sure, it’s on the internet, but it’s anonymous. If it weren’t anonymous, I wouldn’t be writing as frankly as I write. And to my parents, I’m not anonymous. Therefore, they can’t read it. We’ve worked out an arrangement: I’ll send him links to the entries he may read, as long as he promises not to go poking around in the rest of the site. I can’t write if I’m thinking, “Oh, my dad’s going to be reading this–better leave out the part about pelvic rest.”

Semi-Desperate Housewife had a post awhile back on this general topic–basically, who knows about your blog, and how does it affect your writing, and do you leave things out because of the people you know are reading, and do you now regret telling people about the blog?

I never manage to remember what’s on TV or when, and so what I like to do is rent DVDs of TV shows that are no longer on the air. It’s an instant-gratification way to snork down entire series: no waiting a week for the next episode, no waiting all summer for the next season.

But here is the problem: it does me no good to rent DVDs of TV shows that are still currently producing episodes. I accidentally got started on Gilmore Girls and now I’ve seen through season 6 but I have to wait ages before season 7 will be on DVD.

What I need are recommendations for good television series that are no longer being made, so that I can watch the entire series now, with no waiting.

I had an OB appointment today (I’m at 23 weeks), and he went over with me the results of the ultrasound I had in mid-January. Apparently the ultrasound shows I may have placenta previa.

I’ve been doing a little frantic online research, and so far it’s setting my fears to rest. For one thing, I was thinking that placenta previa could lead to placental abruption (where the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall, depriving the baby of things it needs), but I was mistaken in that. Also, it appears that it’s fairly common to hear after a mid-pregnancy ultrasound that you have placenta previa, but then to find later that the problem is no longer there. I have an ultrasound in 4 weeks to check to see if “migration” has occurred. The OB said the placenta doesn’t literally migrate (here he made a wing-flapping gesture) but that as the uterus expands it can turn out that the placenta was never over the cervix to begin with and only appeared to be.

If it hasn’t migrated, the ultrasound will determine how far over the cervix the placenta is. I’ll have to be alert for any bleeding (as if I’d be blase about that otherwise), and there’s an increased risk of early hospitalization and premature birth. Women with placenta previa have to have c-sections, but I have c-sections anyway so that’s no big deal.

The most alarming thing to Paul, of course, is that if I do have placenta previa, I’ll be put on, um, “pelvic rest.”

I made muffins this morning with William, and I was letting him stir even though I hate to because I like to have it done Right and Efficiently and My Way, but I let him do it because it is good practice for him and it is also good practice for ME in controlling my controlling nature. So he was stirring, and of course he accidentally made a perfect lever out of the spoon and there was a geyser of flour, and luckily it was a small geyser and not like the one that went all over both of us and the floor and the cupboards the other day. A little did still get on my face and glasses and shirt, but I cleaned up relatively easily and managed not to say anything crabbier than a gentle “Please be more careful with your stirring” which was the kind of parenting triumph I wish was being observed from behind one-way glass because I think it’s an accomplishment deserving of at least an approving little checkmark in a notebook.

So later I took William to kindergarten, and when I got home I put the twins to bed and finally got a chance to pee in peace, and when I was checking myself out in the mirror afterward I noticed I had flour ringing one nostril. Evidently I was insufficiently thorough with my clean-up. How many of the teachers and other parents think I use drugs now, do you suppose?

I’m sure it didn’t help the picture that I have bloodshot eyes today. Paul is sick, and when Paul is sick I have to use all my inner strength not to kick him out the door. He is such a baby. I was queasy for three months and had a hacking, gagging cough for about a month of it but couldn’t take any good drugs (e.g., flour) and he was all, “Yeah, so you said. Does this mean we’re not going to have sex again tonight?” But he gets a totally normal minor cold and he’s groaning on the recliner, going to bed early, taking huge slugs of Nyquil, picking fights with me about comment sections and then bailing with “I can’t deal with this, I’m too sick,” and saying, “I might not go to work tomorrow so don’t wake me if I’m still here in the morning.” Oh my freakin’ stars, he should feel lucky I was still here in the morning.

As it turned out, he did go to work and he said he slept really well last night. That was news to me, since from my point of view what he did all night was snore deeper and louder until he jerked awake and thrashed into a new position, often elbowing me in the spine as he did—every 1-2 minutes. Tonight I’m keeping the rubber mallet by my side of the bed, just in case the Nyquil needs a little “help” knocking him out again.

I slept poorly, not only because of the thrashing and snorting, but also because Paul had turned the heat up 2 degrees warmer than usual (because he’s siiiiiiiiick), and I’ve been liking it about 2 degrees cooler than usual, and so the 4 degree difference was roasting me slowly over open flames. And I would like to know what has happened to all the awesome “Logan Huntzberger is my boyfriend” and “Tom DeLonge’s lips belong to me” dreams I was having before, because now I’m getting mostly dreams about looking for a bathroom, being late for a flight and I haven’t packed yet, and having futile unsatisfying fights with former boyfriends.

In happier pregnancy news, I can now feel baby movements from outside my tum. I was sitting in the recliner reading a book (Twisted by Jeffery Deaver—really good if you like suspenseful, twist-ridden short stories) and I had my hand idly on my tum just to check and I could FEEL the kicks against my hand. I love this stage, but now I’m not going to get anything done because I’m just going to sit in a chair all day trying to feel more of them.

Paul and I just had an argument about comment sections of blogs. He said that “everyone on the whole Internet” agrees with his point of view, which is that posting a comment and then never going back to the comment section to see if anyone else has commented on your comment is like going to a party wearing ear plugs. He says the comment section is where people discuss the post, and that it is weird to leave a comment and then “leave the room,” as it were.

I say that the comment section CAN end up being a conversation between commenters, and that it’s interesting and neat if it does, but the real point of a comment section is to comment to the blogger–more like listening to a speech and then going up to tell the speaker what you thought of it afterward; and I say that he’s thinking of chat rooms when he makes his party analogy. I generally leave a comment and then don’t return, unless it’s the kind of post that leaves me wondering what other people will say about it, too. Paul says that my approach is antithetical to the whole concept of blogging/commenting.

What say you all? Do you return to the comment section of a post you commented on (1) always, (2) sometimes, (3) never? Do you think it’s weird or rude not to? Do you think of the comments section as being for (1) comments, (2) conversations, (3) both but more of one than the other?