Taking Care of Business

This weekend’s grief moments brought to you by the taking care of business…and hair

Noah’s hair has been long for awhile.  Back around November, Shannon and I were talking to him about getting a haircut.  He had been fighting us, saying he wanted “vampire hair”.  Still can’t figure out what he meant by that, but…just no.  But we never pushed the issue and his hair continued to grow.  On Saturday, he and I were having a fit about the way he was acting…and it finally just struck me, how wild and crazy his hair had gotten!  It was overgrown all around his ears, he had a continued pre-mullet in the back, it was WAY over his eyes.  I up and just decided: Noah is getting a haircut.  Today.  After a bit of haggling back and forth, Noah agreed to it.  And once Darcy found out he was getting a haircut, she wanted one too.  With Darcy’s hair, we were trying to let it grow long (Let’s put a little pin here.  Because we’re going to get back to this statement shortly).  But, I figured I’d just ask the stylist to just take a little bit off her ends and trim up her bangs.

So, off we went to Hair Cuttery.  The last couple times Noah got his haircut, Shannon used my buzzers on him, but in those cases, we were giving him closer to a buzz style like I do with my hair (Yay for balding up top, am i right guys reading this blog???).  So since he didn’t want to go that short, Hair Cuttery was the main place that would let me get it done ASAP.  So, we arrive, get them checked in, have to walk around the mall to wait, I manage to get him an 80% off Redskins shirt (appeasing the in-laws!), and we’re back to get his haircut.  Now, luckily for me, I had a picture of Noah from 2013 when we got family pictures done.  Because his picture has longer hair without being borderline Cousin Itt level!  So, on the left is the intended cut, on the right is the actual.  Not perfect, but pretty good!

So, now it’s Darcy’s turn.  She hops on the chair and the stylist asks me what we’re doing.  I was quiet for a few seconds, then said I wanted to let her hair grow still, but maybe just clean up her bangs out of her eyes and take some off the back (The unsteadiness is beginning to grow).  Then the stylist asks me if we should do some layers or this or that.  After about 10 seconds, I just blurt out “I DON’T KNOW!!!!!!”

Let’s go back to that pin.  “We were trying to let it grow”.  By we, I meant Shannon.  Not that I didn’t want her to grow it, I like her with long hair (I liked Shannon with long hair too, but in the entire time we dated, she couldn’t ever stand to grow it long enough to where it was when we met.  Just got tired of the itching, management, etc).  What I mean is…Shannon was the one with the hair ideas.  For both Noah AND Darcy.  I have no idea what “layers” means in hair (Okay, I have SOME idea.  But I have no idea if that’s what I want for Darcy).  And then I’m like “Should I even make her keep growing it?  Maybe Darcy wants it shorter?  Maybe we were only growing it until X point and we’d get it cut then?  WHY DON’T I KNOW THIS?????”.  I did a pretty good job of not melting down to the stylist, I just explained that my wife had died a month ago and she was the one who usually did things with the kids hair.  She ended up just taking about an inch off the ends and cutting her bangs to her eyebrows.

After that, we decided to try another adventure: Eating out.  Just the three of us.  At a restaurant.  On a Saturday night.  What could go wrong, right?  Actually, it went well all things being even.  I had done the two of them at a restaurant a couple years ago, one night when Shannon had stuff going on.  But Darcy was younger, so basically just needed to be fed by me then.  You would think having two kids able to feed themselves, it’d be easier.  But that idea didn’t count on Darcy wanting Mac and Cheese with Yogurt and Strawberries.  Two things that MUST be eaten with utensils, and one of which is VERY drippy.  Alls well that ends well though, we managed to all bed fed to satisfaction and no one needed a towel to cleanup after!  I consider that a win.

Then on Sunday, I started wrapping my head around our bill payments.  This was one of Shannon’s responsibilities.  I took care of cooking, cleaning, getting kids ready, etc.  She handled the money.  I mean, I know how to log into our account, I know how to pay a bill, etc.  But Shannon had an art/system to how we balanced paying certain bills to coincide with paychecks coming in.  So that’s what I need to decipher.

That wasn’t what the hard part though.  I had always recommended to Shannon we keep a calendar of what was due when, she just did it her own way.  So now, I go with what works for me.  No, the thing that triggered it honestly….was updating all our accounts to use my name and email for logins.  It’s a silly way  to think of it, but it felt like I was slowly erasing her out of existence.  Like piece by piece, we are removing her identity from things.  Also, it served as a reminder that, though we didn’t say I love you very often out loud, or in emails/texts to each other, we both knew it.  Almost every one of her passwords to these accounts involved our wedding date or a variation on my name.  I almost wanted to keep them when I switched to my accounts…but the IT guy in me went with more complex passwords.  Except on one account.  On one account (not to be named, because i’m not dumb enough to compromise my security), I kept one of her passwords.  Just to remind me.