I hate my hairdresser.

Ah…that felt good to say.

Ok, fine, so I don’t hate her. She is a lovely person, but she sucks with hair. Which is kind of a problem when it’s her job.

So, she doesn’t cure cancer or keep our streets safe or teach our kids, but she’s got kind of a big job. Take a vain person like me, who can fall into a slump for weeks after a bad haircut, and see how much power my stylist truly wields. One snip, one misplaced trim, and she either has sentenced me to the blues for a few weeks, or required me to put forth the effort to actually style my hair. Neither of which option is really great for me.

I’m a ponytail kind of girl. I usually leave the house with my hair sopping wet (which is really pretty on someone with curly-ish, frizzy hair – truly breathtaking.) I need options. After my hair cut this weekend, she left me with 2 – style my hair daily in order for it to look half-way decent, or wear a hat and look like a boy. Awesome.

How do you break up with a hairdresser? Must one have a conversation? “It’s not me, it’s totally you, and has been for the last few crappy cuts?” “Remember the butchering you gave me when I was 8.5 months pregnant?”

She told me she’s leaving the salon – and expecting me to follow. Of course, I don’t plan to, but what if I run into her? Do I do the awkward, “I was JUST about to call for an appointment” or pretend she’s got the wrong person? No hablo ingles?

I’m at the point where I think my hair will just decide to fall out on it’s own before I subject it to her artistry one more time…

I believe in Ghosts. Not when anyone else tells me about their experiences (they’re just crazy and looking for attention), but certainly when I hear strange noises in my own house.

Lately, we’ve had some freaky shit going on here. For starters, with the white noise machine in the girls’ room. I put it on every night, as I have for the last few years. It’s always at the same volume, and always set to the same sound – static. I never change it. The peeping frogs and singing birds just don’t do it for the girls. We leave it on all night.

For the last couple of nights, I’ve gone in and the machine has been off. No one has touched it. It’s too tall for M to reach. So weird. Maybe it was somehow set to a timer? Not a chance. I have not done anything different when turning it on each night.

Yesterday morning, I went in to get Abs out of her crib and was greeted by the sound of a dying seagull. WTF is that? The noise machine. The buttons to change the sound are on the front of the machine. Quite hard to reach, actually. Even if you hit it by accident, the seagulls are a few clicks beyond the static ,and nowhere near the volume buttons or the ‘off’ button. Weird.

Last night, after the girls got out of the tub, we were playing in their room for a bit. I swore I heard a man’s voice saying, “Daddy” but I didn’t hear the familiar click of the downstairs gate or the front door closing. Again, weird. I shook it off as being in my imagination, but then M said, “Daddy’s home. Hide!!”

She heard it, too?

Daddy was NOT home. No one was here. We both heard a voice.

Of course there had to be an explanation. The answer is simple – evil spirits in my house. Comforting.

Joe got home, I told him about the ‘voice.’ He got freaked out. Not because I told him the story, but because our 5 year old daughter could back up my claims. If she heard it, it must be true. If I heard it, it’s because I watch too much TV.

What are those noises and voices that I am hearing? Who the Hell is changing the noise machine? Is this asshole the reason Abs is waking us up nightly for hours at a time? If so, Ghost, consider yourself about to be exorcised. Because me, on 4 or 5 hours of sleep, is MUCH scarier than you’ll ever be.

Casper, you have been warned.

We are starting to have a big problem with M and her attachment issues. She is attached to everything. EVERYTHING. I posted recently about the bed incident. She freaked out…for days…about a bed that she hadn’t slept in for 2 years. It was in her room for all of 4 hours and you’d think we asked her to give up one of her legs. Or her favorite stuffed animal.

We are noticing it all the time now. Yesterday, as I was using the bathroom, she demanded that I not flush so she could say goodbye – again – to her frog Fly. The frog I flushed months ago. Then the water works came again. “I really wish you waited until I got home before you flushed him. I didn’t get to say goodbye, and now he might not hear me because you flushed. WAAAAAAAAA!”

Dare throw away any art project she made? Even if it’s just a piece of paper with 1 crayon mark? Prepare to cover your ears lest you be subjected to hours of, “How could you treat me like this? Best friends don’t throw away special presents!” Let me be clear – the special presents have been sitting on top of my refrigerator for months before they are thrown away. She just has a sense when there’s something she’s not supposed to see in the trash – and then decides that will be the day she picks up after herself and throws her garbage away. Almost makes it not worth it. I never know what she’s going to flip out over next. A used napkin? A broken glass? Your guess is as good as mine.

The last straw. At a birthday party this weekend, she got a few fake tattoos. I put one on and she loved it. Last night, she noticed it was starting to peel.

“Why does my tap-too look flaky?”

“It’s starting to get old. We’ll take it off tomorrow and put on a fresh, new one.”

“WAAAAAAAAA! I love this one. I’m not letting you take it off.”

“It won’t hurt, and we’ll put one on that looks just as nice.”

“NOOOOOOO! This one!!

Then I proceeded to read her bedtime story, while she held her forearm up, so her Dora temporary tattoo could see the pictures, too. While whimpering the whole time. All the while, trying to stop myself from peeing my pants laughing.