I went to the hairdresser today. Couple things happened when I had my boys. They started giving me gray hairs. Too many for me to ignore. So I started dying my roots and highlighting. I also developed an affinity for waxing. Lasts a long time and my pain tolerance sky rocketed after carrying and delivering twins. I go see some one who waxes upper legs/bikini line every 6 weeks or so. But some times I do a touch up in between visits.

There I am. Wearing a bath towel, in the kitchen, hair in a ponytail, boys watching a movie so I have about ten minutes before they lose interest and require my attention. I had waxed a few spots on my legs before, but none up close to the bikini line.

I realized that my mom pooch from carrying twins (which is smaller now than it was, and hopefully with enough hot yoga will continue to shrink) was interfering in my waxing. However, hot yoga gave me enough flexibility to contort myself into a crazy position with my head practically in my crotch and my hands trying to spread the wax, hold the pooch out of the way, and then put the paper on and….then I realized my hair was stuck in the wax.

I tried flipping my ponytail up and then I had to let go of pooch, pull hair out of wax on leg, towel dropped, I’m naked, swearing, and in walks my wife. Literally I’m hopping around the kitchen going “Fuck this fuck fuck fuck” trying to pull the wax out of my hair, dropped the towel, and she looks at me, shakes her head, and keeps walking.

So I grab the meat scissors. Because obviously I couldn’t take the time to walk ten feet and get real scissors and I cut the glob of wax out of my hair along with a couple inches of my hair. One problem down.

Then I wax the spot on my leg, almost in tears at this point but trying to laugh about it. Then my kids come over and ask what Mama is doing, I’m struggling with the towel, and then I drop wax all over the floor. It didn’t improve from there.

A couple weeks later my wife asks me to not wax at home anymore. She says I can’t handle it, and neither can our kitchen. To her credit she said all of this with a straight face.

I’m at the hairdresser’s today and I tell her I need a trim. Then I hold up the bunch of hair that is about two inches shorter than the rest. I tell her it was a wax disaster and not to ask any further questions.

I can still see the boys faces, total bewilderment and I’m thinking, this is what makes a family. These moments when I’m such a freaking mess. No one else in my life sees me like this. Not that I would want any one else to see me with wax in my hair, naked, and swearing in my kitchen, but my point is these are the moments that make family. They are intimate, raw, and incredibly vulnerable. I can laugh about it now, and I cracked up telling my hairdresser.

It was a bad night and the damn balloons (about a week old) were still high on helium, weighted down with little hearts. I was sick of tripping over the balloons because I told the boys they couldn’t have them in the family room, so they would park them between family room and rest of house.

I tripped on Jackson’s three times. I told him all three times to get the balloon into the toy room. The fourth time I picked up the weighted balloon and tossed it into the playroom while yelling, “Move your balloon now!” Which was stupid because I was moving it. But I was losing it that night. They were wearing me down.

The boys were right there. Watching my meltdown me throw the balloon into the playroom. It somehow managed to skid over one of their little wooden chairs and much to all of our horror we watched Jackson’s balloon get torn clear in half. It caught on something on the chair and literally just completely ripped silently in half. Then it floated sadly to the ground in multiple pieces.

The three of us looked at each other. Then Jackson burst into tears, “My balloon Mama! Not Nice Mama!” And a whole litany of name calling and blaming me. How to explain to a three year old that I actually did not mean to do that at all, and I could never have predicted that if I tried. I felt like the worst human in the world. I tore my three year old’s balloon in half. I thought he had recovered though and we were putting it to rest.

But today, two weeks later, we were driving home from daycare and Jackson said, “Mama, you hurt my Elsa balloon,” and I had to say, “Yes baby, I did. I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t upset, just stating a fact.

The boys see me at my worst and I hope they also see me at my best. I guess it’s how we all react and recover from our worst that shapes our bond and love for one another.

My wife and I were just us for ten years. It’s taken such incredible adjustment for us to add two little beings into our life. But moments like the wax and the hair, that makes me feel like me. I’m being myself with them, and that’s such a relief. Because while they were newborns it was hard to be any one at all because we were so sleep deprived and before that pregnant so it was like I didn’t have my body to myself. And adjusting to two new people in our lives who are solely ours has been one of the hardest and best things I’ve ever done.

So yes. I’m sorry boys. Your Mama is so smart in some ways, and so incredibly dumb in others. I own and operate a business and can bring pretty much any one to tears if I pull out my psychiatry skills. But I can’t wax my upper leg without cutting out a chunk of my hair. I have what I thought was incredible patience, but apparently not for tripping over balloons. And I seriously had no idea or intention of ripping it in half.

But I wouldn’t change these moments. Because I want my sons to know me and love me as I am. Just me. Because I want to know them and love them with all their imperfections too.

But for God sakes just move the damn balloon when I asked and then we could all have been spared the balloon murder. For real.