What it Takes to "Get My Hair Did"

Small is napping and the boys are playing outside, so I'm taking advantage of a few quiet moments.  I should totally be vacuuming the carpet so I can get the steam cleaner out to remove the peepee the dog left for us.  I already mopped Large's vomit remnants of the floor - we had an incident during our we're-going-to-try-new-foods adventure last night and there were some streaks remaining on the hard wood.  I could fold the laundry that has been on the "Wrinkle Prevent" cycle for about 45 minutes now.   Or I could pick up the playroom, but as Phyllis Diller used to say, "Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."  


Besides that, Hubby is coming home early this evening so I can go get "my hair did," and I don't like it when he catches me doing housework.  I like his expectations to be LOW.  If I kept the house all neat and tidy, he'd only be disappointed on the days it looks normal.  If his expectations are low, he's pleasantly surprised at all I've accomplished!  


He agreed to come home early after a rather complicated conversation that involved me attempting to explain why my hair appointment requires a two-and-a-half hour chunk of time.  It takes 30 minutes for Hubby to get his and both boys' hair cut, so he has a hard time grasping that it is going to take this long to get my hair done, and all I'm doing is getting a trim and having my roots done.  (Today I'm wearing two braids since Medium and I had Mommy and Me Yoga, but all these little gray hairs are sprouting out from my scalp.  My hair and its age-inappropriate style are a lesson in irony.)  I tried to explain all the steps involved in coiffing women's hair, but he can't get past the fact that I need to have my hair washed first.  "Why can't they just cut it while it's dry?" he says.  Never mind that it's 130 friggin' degrees out today and if my hair weren't in braids, it would be so frizzy I'd look like a troll doll.  My next career would be as some old lady's good luck charm at Bingo.  Come on, B 17!  


When I called Hubby to ask him if he could come home early and take all three boys with him to Cub Scouts, I was met with some resistance.  He literally talked himself into it though.  I listened patiently as he ran through his rationales, all stream-of-conscious-like, for why he should make every effort to be home by my 4:30 appointment time.  


It went something like this: (and I'm improvising here, for the sake of space, and because it's my blog.  If he wants to be quoted directly, he can start his own damn blog.)  
Ahem:
"I should just come home, because things are gonna get crazy next week, and then if you have to cancel an appointment at the last minute I'll never hear the end of it. . .  I don't understand why you can't just take Small with you. . . I can't believe I have to take all three of them to the Pack Meeting. . . Medium and Small are going to be so bored. . . If you have to wait two more weeks to get a weekend appointment, you'll just be b*tching, and I don't want to listen to that either . . . "


So, you see, I think his agreeing to come home was more about self-preservation than about generosity of spirit and his desire to make my every wish come true.  I keep telling him happy wife = happy life.  He'll catch on eventually.