First Published in the Tri Town Transcript Oct 1, 2015
Well Regular Readers, we are back to living in our cars as we shuttle from activity to school infinite times each week. True story, two of my mommy friends drive for Uber up here on the North Shore. Genius!! We’re driving all day anyway, why not get paid for it??
Oh, but that’s right, I’m paid in the love and affection that our two daughters shower upon me after each ride. Or, maybe that’s just water from the actual shower I scramble to take in the nanosecond each pre-dawn before it all starts. Or, maybe that’s the wine that I drink some evenings while thinking about the shower I didn’t get to take. Whichever way . . . yay driving!
Especially this, the first month of school. After the fake-out start and stop again of Labor Day, we are officially Full On. The effect of school five days a week, plus every other single thing, leave us stumbling about like stunned zombies. What a perfect time then, the most photographic moment really, for school picture day!
Picture day hasn’t elicited much care at Casa Baird in the past, but this year our girls both wanted to wake up early, shower, and then have their hair styled. Who, you might ask, does the styling? Add hair dresser to my list of jobs. Except let’s not kid ourselves on that front. My goal was to style them to look . . . alive.
Our youngest daughter has a cute bob. Her request, armed with a round brush and some ‘volume gel’, was to help her stick straight hair have body.
So I went to work, rolling and blowing and brushing and was met with this, “My hair is so poofy! It’s way too big!”
“Sweetie, you gave me volume gel to give it more body.”
She began brushing it flat against her scalp. “But it’s too poofy!”
It’s a bob. There’s not a lot of room for creative interpretation, so I let it go. She was alive. Goal complete.
Then came my eldest who is almost taller than me. This makes blowing out her long, thick, wavy hair a full contact sport. Added to this mix, was the excitement of her twiggy tall self being in a constant state of near-swoon each morning.
Regular Readers may recall that she fainted two years back resulting in a wild ambulance ride and not a small amount of drama. So, I made her sit. This meant I could only dry her hair if I squatted in a sumo wrestler stance. Thus positioned, I began.
“Ow, you are burning off my ear!”
“I am not burning off your ear. Do you want your hair dry or not?”
“Yes, but, OW, you are going to leave an actual burn mark on my cheek!”
“The hair dryer is many inches away from your face, but if might help if you stood still.”
“I’m sitting, so I don’t faint. Remember!? I can’t stand still.”
“Well then sit still. Stop dancing in place.”
“I’m not dancing. OW!”
“You are dancing, and I can’t be expected to dry your hair, which is like 20 pounds of wet kelp, if you keep dancing. I’m holding this warrior two yoga pose to dry your lovely locks, so SIT STILL!!”
This continued.
The fun was only broken up by the frequent runway walks of my youngest.
“Should I wear this?” she’d ask, and then run out and come back, “or should I wear this?”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you guys, my girls wear uniforms to school. This outfit deliberation, when there are zero real options, I just . . . I don’t have the capacity to interact with it.
Finally, blown dry, clad, and of course looking beautiful they were ready. I looked like I’d been sucked into a leaf blower and I still hadn’t had a shower, real or otherwise.
Except, as I surveyed the bathroom full of brushes and gel and the trace of my two girls, old enough to care about how they looked, yet young enough to still ask me for help . . . I thought maybe I did get my shower of love and affection after all.