The Morning After

A "late" night for the kiddos as we went bowling with some of our favorite friends, the Comos, and Zane is finally not grouchy this morning since I plopped him in front of Elmo's World playing the hair episode. Oh, yes, hair. Typically, I'm not one to stay up much past midnight. Last night, however, I crawled in bed at 2:30 a.m. after my latest hair adventure.

As my *gasp* roots started to show up again the last few weeks, I decided the drastic contrast of radiant red to honey brown needed to be tempered a bit. I'm really not one to color my hair every 6 weeks and that's what's been going on. Maybe if I was going for a relaxing day at the salon I'd be game...but smearing my head with mud for hours on end? No. Thank You.

So I did a bit more digging on my favorite henna website and found out I could add a plant called buxus to henna to make it browner. I can't make my hair lighter with plant dyes, but browner, yes. I ordered a supply and last night tried out a 1/2 and 1/2 mix of henna and buxus going for a nice, rich cinnamon. It was actually an enjoyable experience this time as my dolly friend, Molly, who just happens to be a fabulous hair stylist, came to help and see what in the world I've been doing with this natural stuff! We smeared and smooshed, this time in an orderly fashion (see this post for my crazy first try), and had my head wrapped up in less than an hour. After 2 1/2 hours I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed and washed and rinsed some more. Then started to dry it and had to go rinse more. (Rinsed starts to be a weird word if you use it enough times in a sentence.) This morning? Whaa-la:

Okay, so it doesn't look that different--yet. Once again I have about 4 days for the color to oxidize and darken, so it will probably be really brown by Monday. Certainly it is less coppery and feels so nice and silky...the down side is the lovely earthy smell...kind of like old tea leaves...that will linger for a couple weeks. I suppose I could borrow some of Elena's perfume?

Enough about that...here's another Kai funny. Yesterday we were folding towels together and just being kind of quiet (amazing!) and he softly says "fart me". I know what that means, so I stay quiet and don't say anything. Sure enough, he goes on to explain in his very matter-of-fact-way: "Mom, when I fart, I say "fart me" instead of "excuse me" so then you know it's a fart, not a burp". "Thank you, dear" is all I can say.