Cousin It

I'm not sure who is shedding more in this family- me or the cats. One of the things people love about being pregnant is how thick their hair gets due to the increases of estrogen. I didn't really notice, since I have about ten times the amount of hair as a normal person. According to babycenter.com this is what happens:

During pregnancy, changes in your hormone levels cause your hair to stay in a resting phase for longer, so you lose less hair on a daily basis. (You may have noticed that your hair seemed thicker than usual.)After you've given birth and your hormones have settled down — usually at about 12 weeks after delivery — more hair shifts into a shedding phase. You may be alarmed to find hair coming out by the handful.Normally, you lose about 100 to 125 hairs a day, but after delivery, you may be losing about 500 a day. This can be very disturbing, but try not to worry too much — you won't go bald!

So really, I was probably losing about 5000 hairs a day. And no, I didn't go bald. Luckily, it has started to slow down. Four things happened today that got me thinking about this.

1) I comb my hair in the shower. Normally, I gather the hairs out of my comb and then throw them in the trash (or sometimes over our bedroom balcony) when I am done. Today I noticed a few hairs in the drain, so I bent down to pull them out. But, on the other end was a HUGE HAIR BLOB! It was so gross. Those reading this should be very happy I don't know how to post pictures (other than those I get off of google images), or I would go upstairs and photograph the hair in my trash. When I googled "hair clog" to illustrate this point most pictures were so gross, I couldn't post them. Plus, I figure everyone knows what a hair clog looks like. I did, however, come across this image, which I think provides an excellent visual for today's entire post.

Sean and Eirin can provide verification that I do indeed shed a lot of hair, as though I tried to be conscientious about cleaning up my discarded strands after visiting, they found a lot in the drain. They also just found a bag of breast milk in the fridge, but I'm not taking responsibility for that.

2) I was getting Raviv dressed today when Shae came into his room to say good morning. Shae and Raviv are starting to become friends. Shae let Raviv pet her, which was very sweet. But, Raviv then had gobs of cat fur all over his slimy hands (he has been sucking on them a lot, so they are always wet).

3) I went downstairs and as I was passing the office, I noticed a few weird things on the carpet. Yup- hairballs. Hairballs that cats cough up are disgusting. They look like furry poop. Unfortunately, Shae had gotten outside a few days ago and ate a bunch of grass, so these hairballs were poopy, furry and grassy. I picked up the biggest clumps, but I'm going to leave the rest for Bil to deal with. For those of you who don't know what this looks like, I am including a picture. Sorry it is so gross but its the cold hard truth. Also, apparently google images doesn't have a large stock of furball pics.

1) I combed out the cats. Or tried. I'm not sure why they aren't bald! After combing the cats they were both about half the size, but I now have a third pet. Hopefully I don't have to feed it.

And, sadly, we missed "National Hairball Day" which was observed on April 24 of this year. For those of you who want more information, please click here, but I recommend NOT doing it on your lunch hour. Unless you are on a starvation diet.