Maybe I Should Hit My Local GNC

It's been a little over three months since I popped my last prenatal vitamin, and man alive, I can tell my system is no longer getting an extra boost. There are little ridges in my fingernails that serve as the prenatal (thicker nail) and post partum (thinner nail) dividing line. Plus, I've had one or two breakouts, which I still think is incredibly unfair for a thirty-two year-old woman who has just invested in her first tub of anti-wrinkle lotion. And the hair loss...oh, the hair loss. I have much empathy for dudes suffering from male pattern baldness. The past couple of showers I've taken have been kinda scary. When run my hands through my luscious locks to rinse out my Redken, THE HAIR COMES OUT WITH THE SHAMPOO. This happened after the Boy's birth too, but I still am disappointed by forty strands of hair wrapped around my palm. AND WHY AREN'T THEY EVER THE GRAY ONES? It's like there's a civil war on my head, and the grays are slowly but surely defeating the reds and browns.

One final thought about this: Prodigious hair loss + black cashmere/wool blend winter coat = icky hair covered mess. Yes, I've got one of these:

But it's a little bit like trying to put out an inferno with an garden hose.

My Only Experience with Hair Coloring Has Been Henna and Sun-In. Should Be Interesting.

Okay, gray hair, it was cute when you started appearing a couple of years ago. Lonely corkscrews would manifest along my part, only a inch or so long. I'd pluck you, and shrug my shoulders at my body's tiny acknowledgement that I am getting older.

But lately I've been finding more of you amidst my lovely locks of brown and red. And you, Oh Strands of Silver, you aren't little anymore. Nope, you run the full length of my eight inches of bobbed glory. I'm not sure which disturbs me more: that my hair color hormones are fading, or that I didn't notice you in your infancy.

Either way, I am fast approaching that fork in the road, the one where I decide to color over the gray or let it flow. Not sure which path I'll take, but I'm thinking that Robert Frost's advice is going to lose out on this one. Time to do some research...the only thing I know not to use is Grecian Formula.

Further Proof that I Cannot Take a Compliment (and that My Ego is Safely in Check)

Since birthing the Girl, folks have told me how wonderful I look. Granted, the only acceptable thing to say to a freshly post-partum woman is, "Wow, you look fantastic." My brain knows this. But upon hearing it for the 42nd time yesterday, I started to wonder, "Did I look so tired/huge/uncoordinated before that my current appearance should be lauded so exuberantly? Did Ms. Compliment expect that I wouldn't have lost the baby weight by now? Is she just saying that because that's what the sisterhood requires that she says? Or do I actually look great?" That last thought isn't even seriously on the table, because then I'd have a metaphorically big head to go along with the physical one.