Five O'Clock Shadow

The official end of summer is right around the corner, and for me ... thank goodness!  Do not get me wrong - this past summer has been great and I have had a wonderful time with friends and family. I am happy because it means we are approaching cooler weather and longer sleeves. Which means I can stop shaving my oldest daughter's arm pits. 

Let me take a step back. This is as much a post about being a stay at home dad to three girls and the uniqueness that it entails as it is an open letter of apology to those same girls. I confess I am a hairy person.  There, I got it off my chest and now I feel better.  Well, actually I did not get it off my chest.  It still looks like I have on a thin sweater when I take off my shirt.  I need to shave everyday and probably could shave twice a day if I had a special event at night that I needed to look nice for.  Unfortunately for my daughters they have inherited this hair growing gene. Of course none of them could have gotten a Y chromosome to go with it so they would be a boy, but oh well.  It was cute when they were born and came out with full heads of hair.  Amy was able to put pretty bows in their hair right away and everyone said how adorable that was.  Then the hair just kept growing. And growing. And growing. Each of our daughters had haircuts by the time they turned one, and they probably could have used one sooner. 

I have known about this 'hair issue' for the oldest for the last few months. But one of the perks of being the only male in the house is that I normally don't have to deal with the female body issues. So I was not fully aware of all that would be involved here. For example, I was aware of the Nair bottle in the bathroom cabinet and the regular proclamations by Amy to the oldest that it was time to use it.  However, I had no clue about the process to remove, or the extent of the amount of hair needing to be removed.

Then swim season started in early June and the two oldest girls joined the swim team at our neighborhood club here in Atlanta. On the first day of practice the oldest took off her shirt and I noticed something that would have made her extremely embarrassed.  Not knowing what else to do, I told the coach we forgot something at home. I quickly drove there to get her a swim shirt to wear at practice. Timing being impeccable, Amy was away for work, and so it was left to me to extricate the hair from under the arms.  I read the directions on the Nair bottle carefully and did my best.  However, either the bottle of Nair was defective, or it was my, um, technique.  The rubbing and scrubbing of the cream did not result in the removal of hair. It did, however, produce a good amount of screaming.  Screaming by both me for her to hold still, and by my daughter because I was being too rough and this is not "how mom does it."  You see, that is the exact phrase that drives me crazy.  I thought, fine I will show you the way I do it!  I figured to do what I know best.  What I have been doing since the 7th grade.  What I did sparingly during college when I thought I was cool having a beard, goatee, fu man chus, 70's porn mustache, etc.  I went and got some shaving cream and my razor and went to work.  At the first sight of the razor the oldest was scared, but after I got the shaving cream on and began, everything went smoothly. 

The only problem now is that every other week or so I need to perform my magic again. It worked so well, the oldest will not go back to Nair and "Mom's Way."  It's Dad's way or the highway.

This weekend, our pool club will host the end of season Labor Day party. And the pool will close. And I will officially be happy that summer is over.

Wedding Quote Wednesday

Here are a couple from the vault to help you get over #HumpDay and to the long weekend.

1. February 2010 – Annie, Brigid, and Amy were upstairs and Kelly and I were downstairs.  Kelly said she wanted to go upstairs with Mommy and I said “Don’t you want to stay down here and keep me company?”  She said, “I will bring in my doll Marabelle to keep you company and she does not talk back.”
2. March 2010 – We were in Newport for St. Patrick's Parade and our friends stopped over Amy’s parent’s house to hang out before going to another friend’s house.  The father said they would call later in the day and stop back over to hang out a little.  Well that evening Annie asked why the other family did not come back over and Amy, said they were probably busy.  Annie then said, “The father said they were coming.  Well you know he is not the boss in that house and he does not know what is going on.  The mom probably did not want to come back.”
3. July 2012 - Brigid at church after Annie gave her "the sign of peace". She says,  "Annie I do not like peas."

Must see TV

Yours truly has been selected from a prestigious group of stay at home parents to be part of a small panel to appear live, in studio, on #RaisingAmerica with Kyra Phillips tomorrow, Friday August 16th at noon.  Or it could be that not that many people responded to the request and they took everyone that did.  Either way I will be on TV sharing with America all of my words of wisdom on parenting.  Be sure to record, #HLNTV at noon, or better yet just plan to start your weekend early and stay home and watch!

The topic is Missing Children.  Thank goodness we have never had to deal with anything close to a missing child and I hope we never will.  We did have two incidents in the last year when the 3 year old wondered off from us in public places.  And anyone who has had this happen before knows that it is one of the worse feelings you could ever have as a parent.

The first time was when we were in the Children's Museum in Atlanta.  We had just moved down here and we went to the museum on a Saturday.  The place was packed.  My wife and I were split up with the 3 girls all wanting to go in different locations.  At one point all five of us met at an activity and all of a sudden my wife and I both say at the same time "Where is Brigid?".  Thus the panicked search begins.  After a couple of minutes of looking with no luck, Amy finds a staff member and instantly their walkie-talkies are buzzing and the whole staff is searching for her.  I eventually found her in the grocery store part of the museum playing very happily.  The total time from realization that she was not with us to joyous reunion was maybe 10 minutes at most, but in your heart and gut it felt like an hour. 

The second time was just a month ago while back in RI for summer vacation.  And of course it was the little one that decided she wanted to explore another part of the beach.  She claims she was searching for daddy, but what she really did was try to follow her big sister to the neighboring beach club.  Again it was a frantic search that included beach staff, several friends, and family members.  At one point the beach manager asked if we wanted the gates closed and locked.  That sent shivers down my spine thinking that we needed to be that drastic.  Again, thankfully she was found unharmed in about ten minutes, but it seemed like a lot longer.

I hope none of my family members or friends ever have to deal with any type of missing child situation.  And to help you protect your kids, be sure to record or tune in to #HLNTV at noon tomorrow for #RaisingAmerica with Kyra Phillips and special guest Frank Quinn.