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.
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