July 15, 2008

Mommy's not a bimbo. Really.

I'm thinking about opening a special bank account for my kid. One that, every time I do something that I think/know will result in a visit to a shrink many years from now, I will deposit at least $50. Today probably would have been a good day to open that account.

Costa Rica is known for it's cheap elective medical procedures and I'm determined to avail myself of a few of them. I've decided to start with Laser Depilation. Basically, a beam of light is used to zap body hair and, eventually, kill it at the root so that it never grows back. I would have never thought to do something like this, but my pal Ana in Miami had it done and the idea of never dealing with a Brazilian wax or bikini emergency again sounded pretty good. She did tell me that it would hurt a bit, like a rubber band smacking the skin, and it did. The first time. That first time I decided that the frozen water balloon used to freeze my bikini area before zapping me with the laser hurt WAY more than the laser itself. That was until I found out that they increase the intensity of the laser with every visit. No wonder the hair eventually dies. By my third visit I was practically levitating off the table with every zap.

Today I had my fourth procedure and it was the first time that neither my husband, nor the maid, was able to watch the kid while I went off and did my thing. Not wanting to reschedule for the third time, I decided to take her with me. While I think leaving the house without diapers when she was an infant (over and over again!) is still the winner in my personal gallery of crappy parenting, taking my prudish little germ-phobe with me to my laser appointment is definitely near the top.

She was already freaked out about being in a hospital ("this place is crawling with diseases!") when she asked me why we'd come.

"What are we doing here?"
"I have a doctor's appointment."
"Is this like the boob squishing place?"
"No. I'm, uh, getting some hair taken off."
"Hair? Off of where?"
"Um...my, uh, hoo-hoo."
Stunned disbelief. "Why?"
"Um...because. I want to wear a bikini this summer."
"So shave it."
"Nah. This is better. Not so itchy."
"Yuck."

I would have left her in the waiting room but for the fact that she's 6 and was carrying lots of interesting electronic equipment to keep her entertained and I wasn't convinced that she wouldn't wander away to look for a magazine and get all her cool toys nicked. When the doc's assistant came to get me, she just followed us into the room.

I won't go into every detail, but let's just say that my kid made it very clear that she thought I was crazy for letting someone "electrocute" me and freeze me over and over. She did ask at one point why I would bother with this since "...no one's gonna see any of that anyway." (Real ego boost there.) She asked if there was any chance of my "hoo-hoo" catching fire. I laughed so hard I had to translate this for the nurse, who proceeded to laugh so hard she had to stop for a minute.

When it was over she asked that I never bring her with me to this sort of thing again. "I didn't need to see this." she said. "I understand why you got a tattoo, but this was just stupid." As I paid for having been tortured for 45 minutes, I decided that if and when I get my forehead Botox-ed not only will I hire a sitter if I have to, I won't even tell her I've done it. Can't exactly spend years convincing her that Barbie is a superficial bimbo and then spend good money to take the crinkles off my face.