Leg Hair Follies

You had to know I'd show up here again, didn't you? That I couldn't possibly keep my mouth (or fingers) shut? But today, I've already cleaned most of the house and done two loads of laundry, plus taken care of some editing, so I'm treating myself to a blog post. Plus, I want to remember this time. What time is it, you ask?

Time to talk about and acknowledge that the twins are, indeed, almost teenagers.

Yep, they turn 13 in January, and while we've been pretty lucky to avoid the moodiness and angst that comes with being a tween, I know we'll be hit full force once their cycles start. (Don't worry, I WILL NOT post about that occurrence. If they want to tell you, I'll let them do so.) How do I know this? Because the environment is already changing.

Exhibit 1: Zoe could not find the "right" clothes to wear to a drawing class on Saturday. She stood in front of her closet, like a statue, for at least 30 minutes before selecting what had been on the floor the whole time. She almost missed her ride to the class. And she barely ate breakfast.

Exhibit 2: The girls barely eat breakfast anymore. I force them to eat something before school, but getting them to do so is a struggle.

Exhibit 3: The sheer number of those aforementioned clothes that litter their floor. Every day.

Exhibit 4: (And this is the one that has finally convinced me of where we are in the journey from childhood to adult.) The girls asked to shave their legs.

I know, many of you have daughters who might already shave their legs. The girls are, after all, in seventh grade. But they have blonde hair on their legs, and so far, we've gotten by without taking out the razor. But last week, the girls decided that it was time to take away the hair.

Why, in the middle of fall? I wondered. When their legs won't really see much daylight? I don't know. I think the twins are just at that age. But because the blonde leg hair is pretty thick and we'd just had the plumber out to snake the drain, I didn't want said hair spiraling down the pipes. Hence, I took out an old bottle of Nair.

"Nair?" one of them asked. "What is that?"

"It's lotion you put on your legs...then you wait...then you can take the hair off," I replied.

We went through the motions of applying the green (and probably horrible for you) cream to their legs, waiting the four minutes, and wiping the legs down.

"What's that?" Talia pointed to the sprinkles of something on the tissue as I wiped her leg.

"Hair," I said. "That's the hair!" I looked up at her, wondering if she was having a blonde moment. (I can say that, as I was born a blonde.) Weren't we supposed to be taking the hair off her legs. What did she think it was?

"Oh, wow!" Both girls leaned in and reveled at the bits of hair scattered across the tissue. "That's pretty cool!" one of them added.

I can't remember what else happened. I know that I suggested they rinse their legs in water, and that the next day, they wanted to do the back of their legs. ("I failed there, Mom," Zoe said. "Forgot about the back of my legs!") I shook my head, laughed, and let them have at it. I know that in the future I'll have more to worry about than the girls, their legs, and a bottle of Nair. The cucumber-melon scent that still lingers in the air reminds of that fact.

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