taking action (with much hesitation)

Once again, many apologies for neglecting the blog. I have two excuses. I'll disclose one now and the other can wait for another blog. I scheduled to take my ESL endorsement test Sept 25th and have been making the most of my "free" time studying and preparing for the test. There is a lot I feel I need to re-familiarize myself with and a lot of philosophies, politics, legislation, and theories that I need to learn. I really hope to pass the test the first time, so it means setting a pretty strict schedule for myself to be prepared. I am actually enjoying the studying and feel like the books I am studying would have helped me immensely more than my college courses for the type of students I had when I was teaching. So, I have one and a half weeks left to cram. Yikes!

Today, I had my first heart to heart "discussion" with my daughter. I had to put "discussion" in quotes because, clearly, a 15 month old cannot really converse with words. Regardless of her lack of words, my child has volumes full of body language and she never ceases to amaze me. Let me explain. Ryan and I have been noticing that the hair pulling habit has not ended- rather she has a whole new terrible bald spot. Gulp. This one is in the back of her head.

So, her hair seems to be long enough again that she can gets her little hand around it and yank. Thank the Lord that she does not appear to be eating it. (I've checked her diapers). Instead, I seem to be finding it on her PJs in the morning and stuck to her stroller and clothes. Anyhow, Ryan and I have been discussing this in her presence and I have talked to a few other people about it while she's around. I finally stopped and thought about it today and realized that Coranelle probably understands a lot of what we are saying and I don't imagine that she likes being talked over. So, I sat her down in her bumbo seat before lunch today (yes, she is still tiny enough to fit in her bumbo seat) and we had a chat. I told her that it made me really sad that she is pulling out her hair and that her head looks ugly with all the bald patches. I told her that I really don't understand why she is doing it, but it stresses me out and makes me sad. Meanwhile, Coranelle never stops looking into my eyes. When I told her that it made me sad, her bottom lip started to quiver. She was very remorseful and listened intently, sitting still. I explained to her that she was a really beautiful girl and I wished she'd be more gentle with her hair. At that point, she gave me a weak little smile and gently stroked her head. I asked her if she could always be gentle, and she nodded in earnest. Then, I told her I loved her tons and tons, and she responded by holding her arms out and giving me a big hug and sloppy kiss. Wow! That kid. I swear she is an intuitive psychologist trapped in a 15 mo old's body. Obviously, I don't have my hopes set on this discussion fixing our problems because when she needs to self soothe, her habit is still there. But, she is a pretty amazing girl.

Next step is that we have to cut her hair again. This makes me terribly sad, but Ryan is right. Her hair is going to look ridiculous if we let it grow out right now, given she has three big, bald patches. She needs to have her hair all the same length. I hate that we have to cut it again (almost as much as I hate the fact that I am blogging about this again). I am so incredibly weary of having people ask me - every time we are out- how old my little boy is. Seriously people, girls do not have to be dressed head to toe in pink, with ribbons and bows. Notice the purple flowers on the pants, or the pink stripes on the shoes. Sorry, I am overly sensitive to this. I realize there could be a LOT worse things to be dealing with. It's just an explanation for why I don't want to cut the hair again. So, we- I- took some action.

To preface, I had a sort of vision of what I wanted Coranelle's ear piercing experience to be. I remember mine (and this could be wrong Mom, but this is what I remember) and it was a great memory. I think it was a Sat. morning right before the annual Easter egg hunt at Stanley Park. I believe I was 5 and excited to get the ears pierced. So, mom took me and it was just us and I felt pretty special. When my ears were done, I got to show them off at the Easter egg hunt and everyone made a big deal about how pretty my ears were. I was hoping Coranelle's experience could be something like that.

But, we never imagined our child would be pulling all her hair out. Last night, Ryan finally relented to letting me pierce Coranelle's ears so that she wouldn't be mistaken for a boy once we chop of all her hair again. So, this afternoon, we went to Claire's and got her ears pierced. She has adorable ears and now they are studded with pretty purple decor. It was traumatizing, just like the shots, but we got through it. Not what I had imagined ( restraining and holding a wailing, flailing child), but that's life. She hyperventilated for a bit, but I think that was more on account of me taking away her wet, sticky lemon sucker before we got into our "new" car than the ear piercing.
The new earrings in the new car. They are smaller than they look in this photo, but you can see the purple marker they used to mark the spot. We couldn't get all the marker off after the piercing because Coranelle was so mad.

Speaking of which, yes, we got a new car a few weekends ago. It is a beautiful "dolphin gray" 2003 4 Runner. More on why we got the car soon, but I'd love to humor any guesses in the meantime.

So, I took some (possibly controversial) action today and we'll see how things play out. In the meantime, if you're the praying type, I'd love some prayer for handling this situation and that Coranelle will break the habit before it's diagnosed as some sort of mental disorder. I'm not being totally dramatic- google trichotillomania.

Hugs to all and thanks for reading.

This picture was of our date on Saturday. We went mountain biking in Lyons while mom and Steve watched Coranelle. We got to enjoy lunch out and run some errangs, all while Coranelle was an angel for her grandparents.