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Tuesday, June 29, 2010

And then there were three...

So, it was brought to my attention this morning that I haven't posted anything in 17 days. However, in my defense, it has been a very busy 17 days. But my apologies to all my readers for leaving everyone in suspense. :)

So, my husband is home. The night before he came home I put Jameson to bed and once I was sure he was sound asleep, I was finally able to take a nice long shower and (*shudder gasp*) shave my legs. It sounds like an easy task, but it proved even more difficult than usual. One of the last times I was at Target before my husband came home, I found myself on the shaving aisle. I saw a product made by Nair that claimed to work in three minutes while in the shower. I thought to myself "hey, maybe this is the solution to my not having enough time to shave my legs." See, I'm slightly OCD when it comes to shaving my legs. I'm not one of these women who shaves their legs while standing up in the shower in a matter of minutes. I take my shower, then I sit on the side of the tub, put on my glasses, and shave my legs basically four times...once in all four directions. And even then I'm usually not satisfied. They may feel smooth, because lets face it, I'm pretty sure after shaving my legs four times I've probably also removed the top layer of my skin. The problem is, I'm very very white. My skin is basically translucent. Which means no matter how close a shave I get, I can still see the hair that is under my skin. It's maddening. If I could afford to spend money frivolously on anything I wanted, I would have laser hair removal done to the entirety of my body. And it would be worth every penny. But back to my Nair disaster...

I read the very lengthy instructions, because I'm a woman and we read instructions. I followed them exactly as I was supposed to. The directions stated that the product worked in three minutes, but for stubborn hair you could leave the product on for no longer than ten minutes. I figured if my hair was as stubborn as the rest of me, I was probably safe in assuming that three minutes wouldn't get the job done. So I left it on for ten minutes. After ten minutes I began rinsing my legs off in the shower. My legs felt smooth enough, and initially I was quite pleased. And then I got out of the shower, dried off, and put on my glasses. While the Nair had in fact removed the majority of the hair, there were patches here and there that apparently were more stubborn than even Nair was prepared to handle. So I thought, "well, this isn't too bad. I'll just shave the spots that it missed and be on my merry way." Yeah, if only it could have been that simple.

I sat down on the edge of the bathtub and grabbed the brand new razor from the shower caddy. I ran the razor over the remaining hairs only to find that the Nair had in some way altered the consistency of the hair. It was now so limp that the razor couldn't even catch it. I shaved up, I shaved down, I shaved across, I shaved back and forth...nothing. It was like I had rubbed kryptonite on my legs and the hairs had mutated and taken on a life of their own. Finally I just sat on the side of the tub and stared at them, muttering to myself in utter disbelief. At this point, I had wasted nearly an hour with my new "time-saving" hair removal experiment. I was beyond frustrated. I decided at this point that there was no sense continuing my attempts to shave the mutant hairs. I rinsed my legs, again, dried off, again, and retired to my bedroom where, for the next half hour, I plucked all of the remaining mutant hairs out with tweezers, swearing under my breath the entire time that I would never again use Nair. When I was finally satisfied with the state of my legs, I gave myself a pedicure, and went to bed.

On the morning of Monday June 21st, I woke up from what can only be described as a restless night, put on my new welcome home sundress and matching flip flops, surveyed my legs one last time to make sure I hadn't missed any rogue mutant hairs, and then put on makeup for the first time in weeks. I woke up my handsome little boy and dressed him in his "I ♥ Dad" onesie and his new navy blue shorts with red, white and blue sandals. I was pleased with how we were dressed. I felt like I looked respectable enough in my sundress, with a little bit of cleavage for my husband, yet I was still comfortable enough for sitting around waiting for who knows how long until my husband arrived. And since I wasn't sure how much standing or walking would take place, I didn't even consider wearing shoes that were remotely uncomfortable. After arriving at the building where the welcome home ceremony was taking place, I quickly realized that not everyone had taken my same approach to choosing their wardrobe for the occasion.

I walked into the building pushing Jameson in his stroller and found two like-minded women, also dressed nicely yet comfortably and with a baby in tow. I sat next to them on the front row of a side section of bleachers and, as I am prone to do when thrown in the midst of a large crowd of people, I began to people watch. I was in complete and utter awe of some of the women who were there to retrieve their husband/boyfriend. Women who were wearing skin tight lycra "dresses", and I use that term loosely, with six inch heel stilettos, some of whom were having to teeter around this giant gym-like structure chasing toddlers. Now, I realize that after ten months away, these guys are coming home with a relatively short list of things on their mind. Beer. Home-cooked food. Showers without other men present. And sex. And not necessarily in that order. But these "ladies", I also use that term loosely, could have saved some of these outfits to use later on when they got home to their bedrooms fully equipped with stripper poles. One woman in fact was wearing something that I'm pretty sure was actually a shirt that barely covered her ass, her legs were covered in bruises, and she could barely walk straight in the heels she was wearing. She was also chasing a toddler and parading back and forth in the building, occasionally stopping to harass a uniformed soldier about when the buses would finally get there. I was...amused.

Jameson did his fair share of people watching as well. He even managed to get so tuckered out that he fell asleep in his stroller despite the noise in the building. And then the buses showed up. You could feel the excitement in the air. My heart started pounding and the nerves that had been so raw for the last several days were all on end. Then some uniformed soldier walked up to the podium and announced the 1-28th infantry. The music came blaring out of the giant speaker that was only a few feet from us, everyone lept to their feet, and the entire building full of people began to scream and clap. And Jameson went completely and totally...apeshit. He was screaming and crying, his face beet red, his eyes pouring tears and his nose got all snotty. He was terrified. He had never since birth experienced noise on this level, and it was not a happy moment in his life at all. I tried my best to comfort him, held him close and covered his ears with my hands. I kissed him on the face. And when all of the soldiers had finished marching into the building, they turned off the music and he calmed down marginally. Then the General released them, they all fell out, the noise geared back up, and Jameson started crying again. Shaun finally saw us and came running to his wife and our poor terrified, crying, red, tearful, snotty son. Not the best place or way for us to begin our bonding as a family, so we very quickly departed and headed home.

The time since then has gone much better than I expected. Shaun and Jameson have actually bonded very quickly and are doing very well. Shaun is able to hold him, even without me in the room, and Jameson seems to feel at ease and safe with him. It is a huge relief. I expected the adjustment period to be lengthy and traumatic. Thankfully it has been neither. I think it helped immensely that Shaun was able to be home all day for his first week back. We spent every minute together, and over the course of the week I think Jameson came to the conclusion that this new person in the house wasn't so bad. And Shaun has been great with him. He talks to him and plays with him, holds him and feeds him, and occasionally just reaches out to stroke his skin or rub his head or pinch his toes. It warms my heart and removes a huge weight from my shoulders to see them interacting so well with one another.

As for Shaun and myself, it would seem that my concerns over how the two of us would reconnect after such a long separation were, well, silly. Things seemed to just fall right into place. He always has had this way of making me feel beautiful and loved. And even after being deprived of the affections of his wife for ten months, he still had the patience to woo me. He's a pretty good guy. I think I'll keep him. :)

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL, that's an interesting Nair story. I now know not to ever try it since it doesn't sound too practical. At least you are considerate enough to shave for your hubby. I tell Joe if he wants my legs smooth he needs to shave my legs since I can't bend over to easily at the moment. :)

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