Fall Leaves Second Post for Today

I am participating in the 1000 words and a picture.  To learn more about the 1000 words and a picture prompt and to participate, click here.

For the 1000 words and picture, the word options this week:

Fall Leaves – thought I covered this with Autumn challenge word in the past

Textiles – my mind goes blank on this one

Earth – it’s round, blue and green… ehhh, I’m not an activist and though I think it’s a pretty awesome place to be, I didn’t find inspiration here.

I really didn’t know what word to choose and came close to skipping this week.  But inspiration hits in the least likely of ways…

See, I never, ever, ever (can I write “ever” 1000 times and make that count, because believe me, I was feeling it)… thought I’d be competing with a leaf or traumatizing my son by doing so.  (Whispers:  “I think I just heard Mother Nature giving a snort laugh… it wasn’t a pleasant sound and definitely not ladylike!”)

I love fall colors in the leaves, but I didn’t expect to get a daily dose of it.  What am I talking about?

Yesterday evening my sister-in-law, Madelyn came over.  She rocks.  Her name for Gregory is Aunt Yaya.  She’s wonderful, always offers a smile and there’s in a goodness in her spirit that makes the world a better place.  Madelyn is also great with hair.  She was a professional hair stylist, but because of back troubles, didn’t continue with this line of work. 

Fortunately for the O’Brien’s, Madelyn will cut and color hair for the family – Yeah!  I had the color picked out and ready, thinking I’d go with auburn. 

After Aunt Yaya got her “G Time” (that’s what my husband says when Gregory goes to visit friends and family), we took out the color and started the process.

That’s when my son went from Mr. Smiley to Mr. Cranky.  We thought at first he was just tired… tried to get him to go to sleep… Madelyn held him… I tried to hold him and he just cried even louder.  I knew something was wrong then.  He kept looking at my head.  I said, “It might be the smell.  When one of mom’s friends picked up Gregory and she had heavy perfume on, Gregory went nuts crying.  I could smell her perfume on him.”  (This olfactory gift would be inherited from Granny.  Greg’s mom told me once, “My kids used to get upset because they could never get anything past my sense of smell!”)

My son wouldn’t stop crying.  It was to the point that Madelyn had to take him outside for a stroll.  I walked outside and she said, “Go back inside.  Don’t let him see you.”  It was upsetting and I feel like I traumatized my baby.  Madelyn added, “It’s not surprising.  Have you seen yourself?”

Well, now that made me go look in the mirror… and then I went right back outside, “Madelyn, it looks REALLY red.  Can we wash this out early?”  She shook her head, “Let’s just wait for the rest of the time and if it’s not right, we can fix it later.”  We had already gone the 20 out of 30 minute wait for the color to take. 

No wonder my son was freaked out…. Bad enough to have hair clumped to the top of your head, worse when it has this red stuff that was oozing down my face.  I looked like a murder scene.  Madelyn and I agreed…. Good thing I wasn’t planning on dressing up for Halloween… I think that would have scarred Gregory!

Now, I like a soft auburn…  but when we washed the color..  let me tell you… my locks looked like Mother Nature had painted a fall leaf on my head!

It was the “in your face” kind of red that I never thought I could pull off.  It shocked me and I said, “Oh no this isn’t going to work.”  I washed it 3 times… it was still there.

“What is Greg going to say about this?”  He was in Texas on a business meeting…  I had asked Madelyn to come over while Greg was out so that I could surprise him with a new hair do… but uhhh, this was really different. 

It wasn’t even red… it was more.. maroon, I thought and then later I realized, it’s mahogany.  I look like a tree.  Yes, Mother Nature was having the giggles.  I can still hear her snorting!

In the meantime, my son still hollered when he saw me, so I had to blow dry my hair to appear more normal.  While I did this, Madelyn gave Gregory a bath.  She started giving him the bottle, but he was fighting with her.  I was nervous about picking up my baby.. I didn’t want to scare him any more with my hair and hoped the dry hair would be more acceptable… he needed the bottle and bed. 

Poor heart.  He worked himself up so much, but he did allow me to feed him and then fell fast asleep in my arms.  I quietly carried him to his crib, made sure he was comfy and turned out the lights.  Madelyn had followed me and as we left Gregory’s room, she said, “You’ve come a long way.  I remember when you cried at first.”  It made me feel good that she saw how Motherhood has improved for me.  She’s a natural with kids.

After Madelyn left, I sent my husband a text and said that I made a mistake with the hair color.  I couldn’t let him come home and be that surprised.  He asked me to take a picture.  I took one with my tongue stinking out, stating my thoughts on the view.    He wrote back, “U look beautiful as usual.  Love the tongue.  Love love LOVE u.”

I’m one lucky lady.  I wonder if I had colored my hair purple and pink with blue polka dots if he would have said the same?  Hehe.

Even with his sweet words, I was still worried and sent off messages to Facebook.  Super nice responses there too. 

I guess it’s not nearly as bad as the day I looked like a zebra.  My nature hair color is dark brown.  As dark a brown as you can get without it being black.  So what possessed me to think, “Ohhh, blonde highlights.”  You know the stripes of blonde?  It was all the thing at the time.  Did you also notice that I wrote, “as bad as the day” – yes, ONE day.

I went home, realized I looked like a zebra with black and white stripes in my hair and asked the hairdresser to make me look human again.  Nobody except for the hairdresser saw me like that!  I didn’t even take a picture.  Mind you, that was before camera phones. 

Ok, this post has to come with a picture, right?   Here’s Mother Nature laughing along as I get in competition with her fall colors… and I suddenly feel the need to sing, “This girl is on fire”

Here are some pictures with Aunt Yaya and Gregory.

And I couldn't end this post without a picture of my son and fall leaves (of both types) :)