Grease is the word...

The other morning Elaine came into our room while I was still sleeping. I have some little decorative boxes on my nightstand that Darren gave me--a bunny for Lucy, a duck for Elaine, and then a heart that says "Mom" on it. Even though they open up, there's nothing inside; however, Elaine thinks there is perfume in them so she comes in to smell them every morning. I heard her rustling around and opening the boxes and sniffing, so I opened one eye. She looked...odd. Her hair looked funny. I said, "What is wrong with your hair?" "Lucy did it," she said, as she kept on sniffing. "Lucy did what?" I asked. "Lucy put lipstick in-a my hair," she replied (sometimes she talks like an Italian).


Now both my eyes were open. She has fine, silky baby hair, but now it was standing up, independently, all over. Things were starting to click into place. The night before I had put some Vaseline on her lips because she said they were hurting. She liked that and said, "Mommy put-ah my lipstick on me." Hmmm. Yes. I had foolishly left the container of Vaseline on the girls' dresser, and Lucy had decided to play salon with it.

Here is what it looked like after two shampoos (and this is dry hair):

In the evening, I gave them both a bath before church. I washed her hair twice with dish soap (I thought that might cut the grease as it claims it can) and once with shampoo. Nope. Still an oil slick. So I asked some friends at church what to do if your child has copious amounts of Vaseline in their hair. I got the recommendation to sprinkle baby powder or cornstarch on her head and comb it through. I was leery; that sounded like a recipe for diaper cream, but I went with it and what do you know? By morning, her hair was probably 80% better. Don't say you never learned anything from this blog.

This week was also the very last Buzz at Lucy's school. The kids had a beach party earlier in the day (even though I had seen snowflakes that very morning), and then the parents came at the last 20 minutes of class to hear some of their new songs and see their latest art projects. They sang a couple of songs in Spanish, a song about some fish teasing Mr. Shark, a splashing song; recited their Bible verse; and showed off their new sign language skills.

Going to the last Buzz made me feel kind of sad--this year has flown by, and I can't believe how tall Lucy has gotten and how much she has learned. I went home and told Darren all about it and showed him the pictures. We sat there, sentimentally looking at our great big grown-up daughter, so proud of her.

Then I said, "How is it that our child knows all her numbers, is becoming bi-lingual, and can sing 'What a Wonderful World,' all three verses, in sign language no less, yet she still thought putting handfuls of Vaseline in her sister's hair would be a great idea?"