Grey Hair Adventure

One of the side effects of having my sweet baby is that hair dye no longer sticks to my hair. Or at least it doesn't stick as well as it used to. I have dyed my hair twice since the baby was born and both times it seemed the dye just washed out. Within two weeks my hair was back to being the grey that it normally is. So on January 15, 2015 I dyed my hair for the last time.

I am about 5 1/2 months into my no dye / grey hair adventure. I love and loath the process. I found an excellent blog written by Lauren at http://howbourgeois.blogspot.ca/ where she chronicles her adventure with grey hair and gives a lot of good advice on growing it out. After Christmas 2014 and my second dye post baby I was looking for inspiration and Lauren's blog provided it.

I wish I could say that I had a grand reason for growing the grey out. The chemicals are bad for me, they are bad for the environment, the grey is more fashionable right now. But the truth is that my hair grows really fast, the home dye stopped sticking as well as it used to and I am too cheap to get my hair dyed at a salon every 6 weeks. Some might (and have) said that I am giving up in my upkeep department but it is a never ending fight that begins almost as soon as I have had my hair dyed. So au natural it is.

 I have had two haircuts since the process began. The first one cut my hair from beyond my shoulders to my chin and the second was from the chin to just below my ears. The hair cuts helped a lot. They restored my image to what I feel is the most 'me' and they have helped with the grey transition. I am not sure if it is because I see my minds eye image of myself when I look into the mirror with short hair or if it just makes it a bit less noticeable but it is helping. Most days I pin my 'bangs' away from my face which shows a lot of my grey. Its a challenge not to feel old with the grey but the reality is this is where I am at right now and that is ok. I think at the end of the summer I may look into getting a clear glaze done if the grey is changing color to a brassy tone.

Another side effect of having the grey hair is that people offer recommendations on how to deal with it, often at the strangest of times. I was getting a massage last week (so glorious) and the woman providing the massage said poor circulation causes grey hair. She recommended buying a wooden brush, it has to be wooden, and brushing my hair 300 times in the morning and 300 times at night with the brush. She says it will restore the circulation to my head. I believe it is an old wives tale but this week I will be buying a wooden brush because if anything it will provide me with shinny hair and the brushing will take my hair out rather than it falling out and causing tumble weeds in my hallway.

So this is my grey hair adventure. Most days I love it for its simplicity. Some days I loath it for its greyness. I am going to keep at it because there are other things to focus my attention on right now, hair battles are not that important.

6 Months of Change

We just passed the 6 month mark of having an infant and so far it is going alright. That is to say everyone is still alive and for the most part happy. Every day is a bit different and just when I think I have it under control everything changes. And I am not just talking about the baby.

When I wrote my post in January I knew I was feeling anxious and that it was a bit more pronounced than my usual feelings of anxiety. What completely passed me by was that all of the pamphlets that warn against Postpartum Depression also mention Postpartum Anxiety. So while I was looking for signs of the Depression I totally missed the signs for the increased Anxiety until one day I just couldn't take it any more. I have had anxious days, even anxious weeks before but nothing like this. Basically when you are alone, which I am about 80% of my time, you  have A LOT of time to think. Time to think about things that are bothering you, things that are worrying you and then to continually think about them until you realize it has been about  12 hours and you have not thought about anything else. Little life things (my grey hair), large life things (should I go back to work / finances / house things), things that would never cross your un-anxious mind (is my husband unhappy with me?) and things you should think about but not for 8 hours continuous (is my teenager ok?). I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about my 'worries' and the next thing I would know hours would have gone by. I stopped getting dressed until right before people came home. I had (have) a hard time making the most basic of decisions. I stopped doing all the things I like to do. I would spend hours watching tv and feeling bad about things. Basically I fell into my mind.

After about three months I went to get some help. A nice women lets me come and talk to her occasionally and basically rehash all of my issues. Over and over again. I read lots of books on meditation but have not quite got to actually meditating. I do morning yoga, I pin exercise routines to start. I am working toward a plan to get back on track. Well I was but then I thought I was 'cured' because the huge-anxious-all-the-time feeling subsided. However, the thing I am learning is that it never actually goes away. I knew this before but now it is really in my face. I can keep it at bay with all my new 'tools' but it is there just below the surface. Ready to strike when I least expect it. A long day with out the husband, too little sleep, a bit of unexpected stress. Basically real life can turn me around in an instant. While I recognize that my  life is great and how lucky I am, once the mind starts to whirl I am unable to stop it for long hours. So after about 2 months of being 'fine' I am back in the midst of it. All it took was one night out too late, too little sleep, a large decision and I feel myself teetering. So changes need to be made to lifestyle, health (mental and physical) and outlook. Most importantly outlook. There are people out there who would love my life. While I am one of those people some of the time,  I want to be that person all the time.

While this may be a depressing way to get back to blogging it needs to be done. The purpose of this blog when I originally started it was to be honest. A public way to be held accountable for living MY best life. To be the best wife, sister, mother, friend, daughter and person. Hopefully a way for a vent, a way to be truly appreciative and focused on what I have and not what I don’t have and also a nice little chronicle of my life and daily struggles.

So hopefully you will be seeing more of me.

Unusual Occurance and Unexpected Feelings

When I walked into the baby's room Friday morning at 4am I was hit with the strongest wave of my mom's perfume. It was so strong I had to leave the room and come back in and it was still there. Hanging from the roof above the change table and the crib are large paper decoration balls and they were all moving. So there I am with a wide awake baby, strong smell of my mom and clearly something spooky going on. What did I do - well I started speaking to my mom. Asking her if she thought the baby was beautiful, did she visit often, basically crazy talk. And while I am certain I was delusional from the fact that it was 4am I would swear that I could feel her close to me. But I could only take that for so long so I got the baby and went upstairs, where I sat with all the house lights on for quite some time.

Even before this unusual occurrence I have been feeling very melancholic in regards to my mom.  I am really starting to miss my mom. I always miss her but since having the baby it comes in large waves that are sometimes difficult to weather. This weekend has been one of those waves. I'm angry because she didn't take care of herself, angry that she is missing this awesome baby and angry that I am angry. I thought I was at peace with my parental situation, which frankly sucks, but apparently I am not. Every time the baby does something cute I want to call a parent and tell them. But I don't really have a parent who would be excited for me, my stepdad tries but babies aren't his thing. I am blessed to have Aunts and Friend-Aunt's who love us and want to hear these things but it is just not the same. And so it just kind of sucks.

I think I will weather this wave and then find a way to combat them in the future. A better set of 'tools' is needed. Or I just have to make peace with the fact that I am angry at my mom, might be for a few more years and that is ok too. It is also ok to really miss her too.

Its a New Year, a New Life

It's been six weeks since our life changed forever. We welcomed our bundle of joy, a gorgeous baby girl on December 7.  The last six weeks have flown by with Christmas, holidays and family. It has been such a blessing. But as the New Year approached I began to feel more anxious. Worry set in. As I am a natural worrier this has become an issue. It is clouding the line between knowing if postpartum is setting in or if I am just having extensions of my normal issues. I am hoping for the later.

Parenting so far has been very stressful at times. The first four weeks were very difficult, not because of the sleepless nights and issues directly related to having a baby. Those I was prepared for. I knew it would be hard, I knew I would have to do the majority of it on my own and I knew there would be an adjustment. It was the worries of - am I holding the baby too much, what should we be doing when she is awake, is she feeding often enough, should I rock her to sleep, am I setting horrible patterns for later in her life, does it matter?  Those are the worries that kept me up with Dr. Google many nights. But since New Year’s, when my family went back to school and work I have been trying to follow my gut but in the sleepless night days my gut gets lost. And so the confusion and scared part of me comes out. The part I like least about myself.

So I have a quest to figure out how to keep my worries at bay. I should have started learning these tools years ago, how to not let the worries overwhelm you. Every morning I wake up and try and remind myself that it will be ok in the end. That the years of worrying about stuff has just caused acne and stress, not actually changed the outcome. That one of the worst things that can happen to a person has happened, followed by a pretty horrific sight and situation and I survived. It was hard but I survived.  

I need to not worry about the future, 6 months, 12 months, 5 years because I have no idea what that will look like. All I can do is treasure every moment of the now, be grateful for my husband, our healthy daughters and our life.