Confessions of a girl with a HUGE head

 ***Now this idea came about after yet again getting frustrated with a local graphic arts/print company in town.

My mother received the news that I had a huge head when I was in vitro. Out of all of her other kids, she had normal births, but doctors were worried there was extra fluid on my brain causing my head to be huge.

When I was born the doctors yet again spoke to my mother about putting me through surgery to reduce my head size. They were worried I may never be able to crawl because my head was larger than average. 

As my mother can attest I zoomed around the house like any normal child. However, the one thing that was frustrating was my mom had to cut out the onesie shirt collars because my head wouldn't go through the hole. (No Biggie Right?)

This is a photo of me as a baby. And yes Marshall gets his curlies from this grandma.

OK- Now growing up and learning to get my own style, I always wanted to try those really cute girly hats that most girls wear. And I can remember on more than one occasion my mother shoving hats on my heads, determined that ONE SIZE FITS ALL (I have noticed they have chanced that moniker to One Size Fits Most) meant it would fit on my head. 

I remember many tears and frustrations because I couldn't wear any women's/girl's hats.

If that wasn't embarrassing enough, I liked to try different sports. I went from Tap, Hip-Hop, Jiu-Jitsu (Which I loved....Hell I loved Hip-Hop too), and then I found a love in baseball/softball.

I really loved running and having fun, but then came the dreaded time to wear baseball helmets. My head did not fit in any of the youth league so I had to borrow an adult one....Luckily my coach was a kick-butt kinda guy and stopped anyone from teasing me about it.

Now onto adulthood-My saving grace came in the form of the fit flex hats that were created for most baseball teams. I was so happy cause they would fit on my head and THEY DIDNT HURT!!!! 

Now I am sure a couple of you are like...why not the trucker hats? Those work really well for other people....They don't work because of a ladder incident when I was little

Sidebar: We were invited to see the airplane of a guy in our ward. He was one of those guys who was so cool and did whatever the hell he wanted..cause he could. Well, my mom was invited and took me and my big sister to check it out. I thought it was really cool. As he was explaining to my mom about the intricacies of his plane (Hell I have no clue what they were talking about). My sister climbed up to look at the inside of the plane, and I decided to climb up a little way and sit on the steps of the ladder. I had hooked my feet behind the rung below me, I had no idea why I did, Somehow I lost my balance on the ladder and tried to take out my feet before I fell....All I remember was the distinct floor of the airport...different water rocks cemented together for a better wheel grip. Not so much for little girls' headers into the floor. 

For years my big sister thought she had pushed me and I had to reassure her that I distinctly remember wrapping my feet behind the rung. Oddly enough that part is as clear as day.

Well, my second (Or fifth...I was accident-prone) time in the hospital ended up with rocks being picked out of my skull, lots of stitches, and a hairline fracture to my skull.

Long Story Short (lol TOO LATE) I have scar tissue in my forehead that makes my head a little too weird-shaped for Trucker Caps...One button is either too tight and makes my head hurt, or else the inside of the cap isn't big enough to accommodate my head size. I hate having long hair so the pony tale thing doesn't work either.

SCIENTIFIC MUMBO JUMBO-

The average circumference of an adult skull is...(21-23 inches for a woman and 22-24 for man) Now my head circumference is about 25 inches.

Average Woman's hat size is 21.5-22.25 inches....Yet again off the charts for me

Average ONE SIZE FITS MOST is between 22 to 23 7/8 inches....Yet again...DOES NOT FIT

SO as you can imagine the discussions about my big head drive me up the freaking wall. 

When I was pregnant with the boy, Ron and I discussed the prospect of having big-headed boy....and for Ron, it was "At least its better to have a big head as a guy." AND you know what? It is totally true! Women want to wear pretty hats and do hair in fun beautiful ways. Guys don't really care. 

So when the dr came in and was like..."Who has the big head?" My eyes rolled so far back in my head I could see the brain. I said..."Right here." They did all the tests and everything and concluded the boy had a big head but there weren't any issues.

When little man was born...I felt like my mom. Had to find some onesies that worked well for his head (kimono onesies are a lifesaver,) and not to mention, Breaking out all the stitching or even cutting the collar in some of his shirts.

Right now the boy is in boys' clothes and forever was off the charts for his head size. He may only be a 4 year old but his head size...He can wear medium-large adult, and even the one size fits most adult-sized hats. The Genes Strike Again! 

See even his Halloween costume didn't fit his head....Sigh

But for now, he is pretty happy wearing mommy's and daddy's hats.

Back to Now: I haven't had a ton of issues as an adult. I know which hats work well for my head and I have even had some specially made for me from Alston Ink because they have awesome crews!

Ok, so what got me so miffed that I had to write this story is, My new job at Prime Time Auctions has been such a blessing. After a hostile takeover at the Morning News, I was out of work for about a month and went batty. They were looking for a cataloger and I applied and got it!

My boss is really cool. They treat us really well, they have little snacks and drinks for all who are working and this last week they decided to do a big order of new shirts and whatnot. 

When I heard they were ordering truckers hats (EEEK) I asked her if I could order some of the flex fit hats for me because the other hats don't fit. She was all for it and since the graphics place had the hats in stock...WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!?

Apparently quite a bit. One of the hat types was out of stock and wouldn't be in for about a year. So I went with the general fit. HOWEVER, This was not the end of it.

I get a message from the girl ordering that the hat I chose, and the size, come bigger than thought so she ordered me a medium. (SOUND OF CRASHING CARS AND BRAIN FREEZE ALL IN ONE)

So I backpedaled. I had to explain in great detail that the size I ordered is EXACTLY the one I wanted. The medium-large would totally hurt my freaking head. After a few rolled eyes and vehemently explaining it...I am hoping the graphics company listens and orders my hats the right way. One might see a headline, Irate customer staples hats to owner's foreheads...LOL Honestly, I would never. 

After getting steamed and frustrated for the rest of the night...I figured I would write about it. Get some stream of consciousness venting out. 

French fries, mixed drinks, and weirdness

I remember my mother always saying, "They all have the same flavor," whether it be lite ranch or not, I could ALWAYS taste the difference.

Growing up it took me a while to get used to new foods and even then there are a few vegetables and things I refuse to eat.

Texture is a real thing in foods for me. 

My parents had an apple tree at our old house and it was my job to pick up the rotten apples off of the grass. There was many times that they were so rotten they would turn into mush and I can distinctly remember getting apple "gook" on my fingers and freaking out.

I got pretty creative picking up the rotten apples. My dad would always say "just pick them up real fast with your hands and you'll be ok. The more you have your little tricks, the longer it will take!"

I couldn't do fun things until my chores were done. 

One thing I distinctly remember, beyond the feel, is the smell. The sickly sweet rotten smell of wet apple would give me the shivers. When we harvested the apples, my mother would make apple sauce for food storage. It was always fun to help her can things (especially salsa) but when it comes to apple sauce....I cannot stand anything about it.

If one has never made homemade applesauce it is quite a process. You have to cook the apples up so they are soft and mushy. Then you take them out of the boil process and then put it into an archaic torture device and squish the apples through the hole. At one end of the machine the apple seeds, core, stem and skin comes out to be thrown away. The applesauce mush comes out through a sluice. 

The reason why I hate applesauce and cooked apples (hell even apple pie...as my husband says I am weird), is the texture. When making applesauce the smell of rotten, wet, cooked apples becomes aroma-ticized and it permeates the house. My mom tried to make me try the hot applesauce as it came out the machine (It is one of those things...if it is not meant to be eaten hot...I DON'T WANT TO EAT IT HOT!!!!) 

It would make me gag...any type of cooked fruit makes me gag now. The texture is too funky and slimy and sends me back to my apple picking days and I have horrible memories. 

Another weirdness with me is rating my favorite french fry places. It was one of the funnest dates I would ever do. We would go to five or six of the best fast food joints in town and order small orders of fries. Then we would rate them on how good they were and whether we wanted to eat more. It was super simplistic but holy OMG it was so much fun and it was fun to rate things. You got to know people really well and talk about random crap while doing it.

*In case you were wondering, my favorite french fries are from Arctic Circle. I like how they hold up to dipping and they are never super salty.

*My favorite sit down restaurant fries are those from the Grecian Key downtown. The steak fries are delicious and I really like bigger fries in general.

---and not to mention fried cheese curds...those are sooo good!

All french fries have to be eaten with ranch (and not all ranch is the same). It is a toss up between two different brands. One is the Litehouse Homestyle Ranch, but the other is oddly from Walmart and it is called Wild Coyote Ranch. 

-Best sit down ranch is from Applebees and Buffalo Wild Wings

-Best fast food ranch is from Jimmy Johns (their zesty ranch is to die for and holy cow....SO GOOD)

Mixed drinks

Now the types of mixed drinks I am talking about are the non alcoholic kinds. There has been a craze of mixed non alcoholic soda drinks that has exploded. Places like the Drink Factory or Soda Barn, Soda Craze...basically any name one can think of associated to drinks or soda. The premise is this, a business has a fountain put into their store and buys every popular drink flavoring known to man. These drink flavors can be like Torani, DaVinci, and numerous others. They put a squirt in a soda drink and make their own signature names.

I am of the small portion of people in the world who really likes Diet Mountain Dew. I discovered a really good combination of Diet Dew with Green Apple and I am addicted. I like the sour flavor and hell the bubbles are delicious.

Everyone says that fountain drinks from gas stations are all created equal...I submit that they are not! My favorite gas station fountain is from Maverick...and my favorite soda shop is the Drink Factory in Blackfoot, but the Soda Barn in Pocatello is a really close second.

I don't know why I felt like writing this but I thought it would be fun to let people glimpse at my weirdness.