Cupcake,

You will be four years old in June, and you say the funniest things. Your vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds (hell, you know what leaps & bounds means!) and you surprise me, all the time. It’s little things. Today while we were going potty you put your hand on my knee while getting your Pull-Up on. You said to me, “I’m holding your knee to keep me steady!”

For some reason, that sentence crushed me. You’re not a baby anymore. You use words like steady in context, instead of just saying “so I don’t fall down.”

You are currently obsessed with dresses. Not all dresses. In fact, half the time the “dress”you want to wear is a tunic with leggings. Your favorite, though, is this shirt and pant combo that Nana gave you. It’s light purple with little white flowers all over it. The shirt has a ruffle on the bottom and it’s a little bit long. You call it your purple dress. You would wear this every day if you could. You completely freak out when we tell you it is dirty and needs to be washed.

Last night you were extra cranky. You missed your nap, and I didn’t catch your tired signals in time. Nothing made you happy! You wanted more tv, but I shut it off AND made you put on pajamas. OH THE INJUSTICE OF IT ALL. You pouted and balled up your little fists and said “Mommy, you made me mad because you turned the tv off. You made me mad because you put these ‘jamas on me. I’m grumpy.”

I told you that I was proud of you for using your words instead of having a temper tantrum, and then I played peekaboo and tickled you into a good mood again.

You are so independent, my beautiful girl. I long to hold you and cuddle you all the time but you just want to run and play. I cherish our moments. I love you.

Love,
Mommy (thank god you started calling me Mommy again! )

I’m calling this a “Green Post” because it’s been recycled from my old blog. One of the challenges of the Mominatrix #sexualrevolution was to do a little down-low landscaping, and I thought I’d share one of my experiences with waxing. This is supposed to be funny, so LAUGH DAMMIT.

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I understand that there are some cultures where body hair is accepted, even admired. There are cultures also that demand that women or men remove all or parts of their body hair, either as a religious rite or simply because it is culturally unacceptable otherwise. I tried to do some research on this, but have you ever tried doing a Google search for pubic hair and cultural perspectives? Yeah, don’t. Or turn safe-search on.

Anyway, other cultures aside, my own personal preference is to be clean-shaven – pretty much anywhere that I can be. I love the hair on my head But I also keep that short. I don’t like long hair. Hubby had long hair before we met. If I had known him during his goth or subsequent quasi-goth stages, we would not have dated. When we did meet, he had a nice military haircut. Totally acceptable and attractive!

My reasons for wanting to be hairless “down there” are numerous, from simple to upkeep, to cleanliness, to the “eww gross” factor during oral… the list goes on. No landing strips for me, either. Not a fan. It looks funny, to me. And it’s more upkeep! I’d have to trim and shave. I think that’s asking a bit much from a girl who doesn’t even get to shower as often as she’s like. (Aren’t you glad that you only know me virtually? lol. )

So, with that oh-so-essential background information, my candid account of getting a Brazilian wax while 7 months pregnant last Saturday follows:

The spa room was very nice. There were nice fresh sheets and towels on the table in the center of the room. The walls were painted in calming earthy tones, and soothing music played in the background. There were some nice iron scrolls on the walls, a hook and hanger for my clothes, and a display of creams and lotions.  I had just come from getting my hair cut and my maternity massage, so I was relaxed and feeling sexy and fun and flirty. The clinician, Rachel, offered me a drink of water or some tea. I politely declined – I think that peeing on the woman clearing out your bush is rude, right? I’ll be honest, I’m fuzzy on the proper protocol during a Brazilian wax.. but I think peeing on people is out unless you’re filming a crazy porn or something.

Rachel, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous. Long, dark, curly hair, big big eyes with long lashes, little cupid mouth. It was almost a little insulting how pretty she was. I mean c’mon. If I’m going to have someone staring at my vagina for an hour, I’d rather that she be less attractive than me. If she’s going to be more attractive than I am, and she’s looking at my vagina, she better not be down there to give me a Brazilian.

(Whoops, just outed myself. Bisexual, anyone?)

So, where was I? Oh yeah. Gorgeous girl, first Brazilian wax, 4 months of growth because I can’t reach my own hoo-hah and a huge pregnant belly.

She told me that I could hang my clothes on the hanger and get up on the table, she’d be right back.  That’s right folks, she left while I undressed. She also left while I dressed, at the end. How weird is that? I mean, it’s not like she wasn’t going to see it anyway!

Then again, after I had stripped and gotten up on the table, I draped a towel over myself. Even as I arranged it to keep my bits from showing, I questioned why I was bothering. I mean, she was going to be getting up close and personal. And yet… it would have felt so weird to leave it all hanging out!

So when she comes back in, I’m lying on my back, wondering why they didn’t bother to drywall the ceiling because those dated ceiling tiles are really unattractive to look at, when she pulls my leg to the side and plops some sugar-lemon gel on the area with a little spatula. No “How do you do, let me grab your leg here for a sec.” No “How about dinner? A movie? Sex in the back of my conversion van?” Not even a warning “Let’s go!” Just flip the towel aside, grap the spatula, plop the wax and hello, pain. Let me tell you – that gel is hot. And when it catches on the little hairs, it hurts a little. But I thought to myself, so far, so good. This’ll be quick and dirty. It’l hurt, but then I’ll be able to go, and I’ll never have to look this beautiful woman in the face again.  Then she grabbed one of those little waxing strips and laid it on the gel.  No problem. Then she took her whole hand (gloved, thankyouverymuch) and rubbed the strip down with significant pressure. Let me just say this – not so much a problem on the bikini line area. Totally strange when you get to the “inner” area. I was really, really glad that I wasn’t going to have to see her outside of this context.

Then she started talking to me, asking when I was due, did I have any names picked? I thought it was a little weird, but figured that she was curious and maybe trying to get her mind off of the task at hand (literally….)

I was right in the middle of telling her that I was due on ((RIP)) ((internal scream of surprise and pain)) November 4th, but that my daughter was ((RIP)) ((oh good lord that burns)) about 10 days early, so ((RIP)) ((I bet I’m as red as a tomato down there right now)) this one might be an October baby. With every bit of gel applied, she would apply the wax strip several times and rip, rip, rip away.

I was horrified at the pain. It burned. It hurt. It ached. It was sharp, and tingly, and there was nothing good about it, no way. I had heard that some women like to get this done. I think that whoever told me that was mistaken. They probably said that they like it as much as they’d like an ice pick to the eye. Or they like it as much as they’d like to swallow burning coals. Or that they like it as much as a visit from their mother-in-law while potty-training their first child, who happens to have diarrhea.

But I had started. And I figured that as long as I could just sit there, deal with the pain, and get it over with, I’d be fine.

But no. Rachel was seriously chatty.  She would ask me about how I liked living in B-town, and whether I liked it more than BL-town versus N-city, and how her boyfriend wanted to live in B-town but she wanted to live in N-city even though the commute would be worse, etc etc. Every so often, she’d pause, and squint at my lower half. I’m not sure if she was puzzled, or strategizing, or what. It was all very surreal and strange, and somewhat awkward.

It went on and on. This is not a quick process – it took 50 minutes to get everything.It was a pattern. Apply wax, ask a question, furiously rub on waxing strip, wait until I started my answer, RIP. I swear, she was doing it on purpose. She probably got some sort of sick thrill out of seeing whether she could get me to scream in the middle of my answer. (I’m proud to say that I did not! Though there was much wincing, pausing, and flinching)

I tried to rationalize the whole experience and say that it was good practice for childbirth.  I mean, pain at intervals lasting for 30 seconds to a minute (oh, the burning!) while maintaining conversation with the people around you. Because that’s totally how we all imagine our birth experience. Discussion about politics and complex science while also bringing life into the world, without any pain medication. I mean, that’s what my childbirth plan reads…. yeah.

The worst part was the end, though. I had told her that I wanted everything – even the wayyy back – gone. She tells me that the last part is the least painful, don’t worry, and if I could get up on the table on my hands and knees and arch my back, that would be great. (Oh, how many times have I heard that? “This won’t hurt a bit, now bend over… ) So, with my big ass and my pregnant belly and my ridiculous stretch marks, I got up on that table and posed like I was asking Hubby to do it doggy style. My stomach rested on the table. My back was arched, my ass was in the air, and she says to me “That’s great.”

Oh goodness.

So she applies the gel and gets the strip, and right after she pulls the strip off, I start to giggle.

A word of advice: the next time that you’re in a table, ass proudly displayed in the air, while someone removes the hair from your body using a spatula, wax, and some cloth strips, do not giggle. It’s weird. It puts a strange mood in the room. No matter that you quickly, VERY quickly explain that you’re just thinking about how funny this will be to tell people later, and that you’re thinking of getting an at-home wax kit so that your husband can see how it feels to have the hair brutally ripped from his body, or that you know it’s totally inappropriate and you’re so sorry you don’t mean to giggle but you just can’t stop…

It’s weird. And for the last few minutes of that waxing session, there will be a silence in the room, like a thick, wet, flannel blanket, dampening everything. And you’ll still be stifling giggles.

Needless to say, I’ll be back in four weeks to get it done again. (That’s right, go back and read that sentence again. No typos, I promise.) (It lasts four weeks!) (And Hubby is paying!)

Christmas has come and gone, and though we didn’t have anyone up to visit*, I can’t enjoy a quiet family holiday without the house being clean. The piles of stuff sit in the back of my mind and nag at me until I start cleaning, and obviously that sort of ruins the Christmas Family Moment.

Thus, I found myself the weekend before Christmas preparing for a week-long bid to get our home clean.

Me: We have a 1200 sq ft apartment, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Right?
Universe: Ha! Ha ha ha! Whoo! Oh Lordy that’s a good one. Heh heh. You foolish woman.

Yesterday I went ahead and picked up a bunch of necessities before the big storm hit. We’ve got a nice little weekend nor’easter here, and it’s already 10 inches high out there, still falling fast. I hit up the Target, and $260 later I had groceries, a bunch of cleaning supplies, a new winter jacket for the baby, new gloves and hat for the big girl, and a few other miscellaneous items. Not bad, I thought. Among my purchases were a bottle of Resolve carpet cleaner spray, and Resolve carpet cleaner powder. I picked up the powder because it was for large areas of carpet, and it involved some scrubbing with a brush, which I figured meant that it would get all the nasty nastiness up and un-ground from the carpet.

I got home, read ALL the instructions, and picked a spot of the carpet to work on. Per the instructions, I covered the carpet thoroughly with the powder and got to business with my scrub brush. I could see it getting cleaner! I don’t know if it was the fumes from the cleaning chemicals or the joy of getting rid of the ground up Oreos, but I felt elated. Hopeful. Thrilled, even!

I look back at the instructions. I need to wait 20 minutes and let the stuff dry, then vacuum it up.

Me: That seems easy!
Universe: Ha! Ha ha ha! Whoo! Oh Lordy that’s a good one. Heh heh. You foolish woman.

20 minutes later I start up our little Shark Roadster, 5 years old, to vacuum up the powder. I get a square the size of the vacuum brushes cleaned before I lose suction. The canister has to be emptied. I take care of that, noting how much the powder really clogged the hepa filter! I continue vacuuming. Another 12in x 2in area is cleaned. Clogged again. I empty the canister and realize this may take a while. I start again and as my husband walks behind me, the vacuum stops. I figure he knocked the cord out. Nope, cord still in the wall. I push the on/off button a few times. Nothing. It feels hot. I call for DaddyGeek. He checks the fuse. Nope, that is fine.

We wait 20 for it to cool down and try again.

Nothing. It is completely dead.

So now my carpet is covered in a thick coating of deadly chemicals of death, and my vacuum is dead, and I have two small children bursting with the joy of Christmas coming.  We have to lock the kids in the bedroom and try and feed them snacks and entertain them with movies while my husband goes out in a fucking Nor’Easter to get a new vacuum less than a week before Christmas because the Universe hates me. (See above)

In the end, he gets the vacuum, he doesn’t die on the icy roads of death, my children don’t die on the deadly carpet of death, and I got to play about an hour of mindless Facebook games for an hour in my warm cozy house while the kids were ensconced in the bedroom because I’m a good mother, I’m keeping them away from the deadly carpet of DEATH.

The new vacuum is awesome and quickly cleans the mess without any trouble. That one section of my carpet looks great. Unfortunately that makes the rest of my carpeted apartment look like complete ass, so I must now go purchase stock in Resolve.