Have you read the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald called Bernice Bobs her Hair? It’s all about this girl who tells people she’s going to bob her hair, which causes quite a stir with her friends. Because back in the 20’s it was crazy to bob your hair. I guess. Then she bobs it and runs away.

Or something like that. It’s been a long time since I read it.

What I’m getting at is today I feel like Bernice.

When my stylist friend called yesterday and asked me to be her hair model, she talked about pink hair and craziness. But when I showed up at her salon I realized I wasn’t getting the pink hair. Since she was teaching a class, she had a very specific plan for me. Which didn’t even include fire engine red hair.

She did mention something about “star points chunks” and “Aveda Red #306″, which isn’t even close to fire engine red.

So while my hair does look very pretty. It isn’t pink. It isn’t even sort of dramatic. But heck, it was free.

And as soon as I can get this sleeping baby off of my lap and take a shower, I’ll take some pictures of the new, but blah hair. Then you can all comment and say things like, “Sorry it’s not pink. But I like it all the same!”

Because I’m feeling really sad about it.

(Maybe I should pay real money to get pink hair. Now there’s a thought!)

Do you want to know what’s awesome? When your friend calls and asks if you want to be a hair model (again). But instead of tonight’s class being on up-do’s, it’s on “alternative coloring”.

Can you say pink hair?

(I called The King, super excited, to tell him about it and make sure he’d be home in time so I can leave The Baby home. He wasn’t too thrilled about the pink hair. So maybe I’ll just do fire engine red. That won’t be as dramatic and freak my parents out as much. You know, since they’ll be here in just a few days!)

Here’s hoping I’ll be brave enough to actually go through with it tonight.

The King has a very good friend left over from his college years. We love her and her husband. But we only get to see them once or twice a year.

The husband got a sweet job in Washington state a few months back, so they moved here. He’s some sort of super-smart scientist with a doctorate degree in something scientific. And he’s only like 22. (That last part might be an exaggeration. But he is much younger than the rest of us.) This new job isn’t in Seattle. No, they live a few hours away. Far enough that we haven’t seen them since they moved out here.

This will all change this week when they arrive (with their three kids) for some sort of super-smart scientist convention. His company is putting them up in a swanky hotel across the street from our apartment. Which means I get to hang out with the Wife and the kids all week. Can you say, lots of walks around downtown and trips to Pottery Barn? This is a good thing. *Sigh*

This morning The King woke up early to head to the new house to work (even though it’s “pissing down rain”). He called me as soon as he pulled out of the parking garage.

The King: It’s like a morgue out here. There isn’t anyone on the streets.

Isabel: Damn rain.

The King: The only people out here are some super-nerdy scientist all huddled under one umbrella.

Isabel: Huh?

The King: I guess they’re in town for the convention.

Isabel: How do you know they’re scientist? Do they have lab coats on or something?

The King: Lab coats? I hadn’t thought of that. No, but they do have on nerdy outfits and pens in their pockets.

We don’t judge at our house. Nope, not at all.

A few years ago The King decided to sign up to participate in a medical study through the University. He had to go in once a month and take a test where he would answer questions like, “how many sexual partners have you had in the last month?” and “do you think you have an STD?” It was super easy for him, you know, since he’s married and not really playing the field anymore.

Plus, I think they paid him fifty bucks every time he went in. Hey, fifty bucks to talk about his sex life. Sweet.

When The King and I were taking our childbirth class we were asked to participate in a study through the hospital and the university. They said something about saving the lives of the children, and maybe something about helping the medical field, or and maybe something about being paid for our help.

You’ll pay me? Sure I’ll help the children.

This study was to take place during baby’s 5th week. Which began last Monday night at midnight. To prepare for this study, I had to watch a horribly delicious movie on child safety. Hosted by none other than Gloria Estefan, bad eyebrows and all. (I’m pretty sure this movie was filmed in the late 80’s. Seriously, it was bad.)

All I have to do for this study is track everything that The Baby and I do for four days. I have to write down when I pick him up, when I feed him, when I put him in a car seat. I even have to write down when I walk away from my baby because of all the screaming. (Thank goodness I haven’t gotten to that point. Yet.)

It’s actually been interesting to track his patterns. After the first day I decided that I didn’t really like getting up every three hours during the night to feed The Baby. That’s when I devised the plan to just let him fuss until he would fall back to sleep.

Low and behold, this sneaky plan of mine works. At least it’s worked for the last two nights. The last two nights in which I’ve only had to get up to feed him one time. I am such a sneaky Mom.

And a newly well-rested Mom also.

Today is the last 24 hours of me logging everything. And then all I have to do is mail in the report and figure out how I’m going to spend my twenty five dollars.

Suggestions?

******

The King’s sister is letting us try out her front pack. I like it. The Baby wasn’t sure what he thought the first few minutes in the thing. But now he’s fast asleep and letting me enjoy the Internet while he gets what he wants. A warm body next to him.

(Notice how I’m still using our totally outdated camera and not the fancy new one we just got? Right, because it’s still in the box. We can’t use it until we read the instruction and figure the darn thing out. Wish us luck.)

I didn’t really have any expectations for breastfeeding. My goal was to try it out and see what happened. I wanted to at least breastfeed until I went back to work. The King wasn’t too hip on the idea of me breastfeeding at all. As stated before, he had been turned off on the idea because a few of my girlfriends aren’t shy when they breastfeed their kids, and it just made him totally uncomfortable.

I understand. It made me uncomfortable also.

But then The Baby was born. And he was an excellent latcher. (is that a word?) This boy can suck. And my boobs are amazing producers of milk. Plus, this breast milk is free. So nice when you are paying rent, building a new house, and paying the mortgage on the house you tore down to build said new house.

This all means that I hadn’t really thought about pumping at work. Sure I have a breast pump. It’s some cheap manual one that my Mom bought me. It’s works. But not to the level that I’ll need. (I guess I need to get it together and buy a real live electric one. Or just rent one. Yes, I need to look into this. Soon.)

Now that I’ve decided to give pumping at work a try, I contacted our corporate HR to see what my rights are (I have none) and to find out where I can pump (in the conference room. Walls that are all windows. Hooray!). So basically, I get to pump in my cubicle. Surrounded by my all male coworkers. Remember, I work in the construction field.

This should be fun.

The HR person suggested I e-mail the Head Honcho of my office to let him know of my plans to pump and how it would work out with my schedule, blah, blah, blah.

I was very nervous about sending him an e-mail that mentioned my breast. Because in my world, my coworkers haven’t realized that I even have breasts. Hello, they are still in denial that I had a baby. They don’t want to acknowledge where this baby came from.

I sucked it up and sent an e-mail to the Head Honcho this morning. I decided I’d better carbon copy the HR department. Oh, and I’d better copy my project supervisor also. Heck, maybe I should copy my entire project team. No-we’ll save that for later.

As soon as I hit the “send” button I got sick to my stomach.

There is a new Head Honcho since I went on maternity leave.

Which means there are way too many people reading an e-mail about my boobs right now.

(oh wait, I’m blogging about this. So even more people are reading about my boobs right now. Am I okay with this???)

I remember looking through old family photos with my Mom when I was in high school. We came across this one specific picture of me on my first day of kindergarten. I am wearing my perfectly creased, and elastic waist band slacks. My arms are folded, and I have the now infamous Dorothy Hamill wedge cut. My Mom, well she looks like my Mom. At least I didn’t notice anything different about her in the picture. But she noticed. “Oh, I was breastfeeding then.”

I remember thinking, how does she remember that?

I now know how she remembered.

Her boobs were huge in the picture.

Just like mine are right now.

And I’m not okay with it.

I was so excited when I was able to fit into my pre pregnancy pants. Hooray, look at me. Am incredible Shrinking Women. Welcome back, cute clothes. Oh how I have missed you.

Then I realized that I wasn’t able to fit into anything else. The only shirts that fit were the few that I had worn throughout my pregnancy. The ones that were stretched beyond recognition.

Tiny t-shirts? Forget about it. Button down shirts? Yeah, right. Don’t even think about it. Tunics? Can’t even fit over my head.

(I do have to mention that I have one night shirt that fits, oh so perfectly. Guess what it’s for. Hooters. The irony is not lost on me.)

I have slowly been adding new shirts to my bleak collection. Mostly I’ve bought four cotton/spandex shirts from Target. The ones they had on sale for $6.99, because that’s all I can afford on my measly short term disability pay. My Mother in Law gave me a great Gap gift card for my birthday last week. But Gap shirts currently come in two colors: Hott Pink and Even Hotter Pink. Neither of which are black. And I only wear black. (Yes, I have a closet full of a million of the same black shirts. I have fooled myself into thinking that they somehow look different from each other. But they don’t.)

Today was a good day. The Baby and I went on our daily walk, which means we went to the Gap and Old Navy. Low and behold, I found a shirt at Old Navy that fits over my boobs, without making me look like I’m still pregnant. And it’s pretty. And guess what, Janet? I took your advice and the new shirt isn’t black. It is a very lovely dark green. (It’s very dark green. Which is almost black. So it will do.)

I’m hoping the boobs will maybe go down a little. Hopefully before I have to go back to work. Because I’m pretty sure I can’t wear the Hooters t-shirt into the office.