Nair for your hair

My daughter is 10 - going on 18.  She is at that wonderful age of being way too old for her age (having been exposed to the music and movie stars of today) and way too naive (having been held on tightly to by her mother and father and everyone else who adores her).  What you get with this combination is a girl who wants to wear bootie shorts and hooker boots -but then stinks to high hell because you can't convince her that she needs to wear deodorant.

 The other night, she very casually says to me, "Mom - I want to start shaving my legs."  Before I shout out the obvious - "Are you crazy!" - I try to remember when I started shaving my legs.  I don't recall when I started, but I know I was already shaving by the time I was in sixth grade and she is going into the fifth.  I also know I didn't even ask my mom if I could - so I suppose it was good that she was at least asking me.  If I would have asked my mother - I might have been spared some of the painful life lessons of the lady bic.

So - to just put everything right out on the table - I said.....

MOM:  Now - you know, the only part on your body you can shave is your legs.

DAUGHTER:   Oh, I know - gross!  I realize she thinks I mean her lady parts.

MOM:   No - I mean, you can't shave your arms or stomach or anything like that.  (One of the things I wish my mom would have told me.)

DAUGHTER:  You can't?  (See what I mean by the maturity/immaturity combo.)

But I forgot to even elaborate on that because my mind is stuck back on her reference to shaving lady parts.  I'm thinking, "How does she even know you shave lady parts?  What trash on TV has she seen now?  Or, what if her friends are already shaving their lady parts?! Wait a minute -  she doesn't even have hair on her lady parts - does she???  I think when I saw her change the last time she didn't, but maybe in two days she's sprouted a full bush!  OH GOD - I'M NOT READY FOR PUBIC HAIR!"

DAUGHTER:  Well Kelly (her step-mom) says I can just use this stuff you rub on and then use this mitten-like thing and buff it off.

So - I told my daughter my Nair story.  I was a little older than her and decide to give the old Nair a try.  I don't really remember if it worked or not on my legs.  What I do remember is that I thought I would see if it worked on my upper lip.  I now know why they make Nair for the face - because if you put regular Nair on your face, it will melt the entire first layer of skin right off.  I ended up with a chemical burn, across my lip, in the shape of a mustache.......that turned into a nasty green infection.....that turned into impetigo.....that spread all over my body.  Good thing I got that peach fuzz off my upper lip - I mean, that's embarrassing for a girl in Junior High to have!

So, I think that story pretty much covered the topic of not shaving anything but your legs.

To this day - when I tell anyone else that story - I tell people that while I was putting it on my legs, I accidentally got some on my lip.  :)

7 weeks after birth of 4th child

My son is 7 weeks old.  When he was born he was sick and had to spend a week in the NICU (which traumatized me by the way).  I swear I came home from the hospital with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  When he was sleeping I studied his chest thinking, "He's not breathing!"  And then thinking, "He's breathing too hard!"  When my husband put him to sleep in his crib, I practically hit him upside the head with my Boppy pillow and screamed, "How can I see when he quits breathing if he's not right here with me?!"  I should point out that my son was only sick for a short time and his problems were completely resolved by the time he left the hospital.  He didn't have to have to be on any medication or come home with any monitors, so my husband wasn't completely off base when he looked at me said, "You need to ask your Dr. for a pill for that or something."

So......it only took my baby about 2 weeks to totally train me.  After the crib incident with my husband, I decided it was best just to sleep with my baby.  ( I had a C-section and couldn't even bend over to wipe my own ass, let alone roll over, so I wasn't real worried about smothering my child.  In fact, I still couldn't get up into our bed, so I was still sleeping on the couch.  But.....I'm sure no mother ever thought they would smother their baby, so I worked it out where I slept sitting up - leaning on the arm of the couch - holding the baby in the crook of my arm.  7 weeks later, here we still are.

I'm also breastfeeding and thanks to the NICU who obsessed over how much my baby was eating and made me believe that unless I nursed him for an hour he wasn't getting enough - I study his fat rolls everyday, just to be sure they are getting fatter.  My husband can't get out of the shower without me saying, "Hey- would you weigh yourself and then hold the baby and weigh yourself again?"  I basically have had a boob in his mouth since he came home; I don't even bother wearing a shirt anymore.  I'm guessing it's okay for your baby to double their weight by the time they are 7 weeks old?

The ironic part is I am not a new mother.  I have 3 other kids!

And yes, before you ask......I meant to have four kids.